Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] making sure I don't damage a git repo

[Bob Proulx]

Aharon Robbins wrote:
> I have copies of those branches on my personal system and want to push
> them back up.
> ...
> I did some experimenting on some test repos, and I believe that all I
> need to do is
> 
>       git push origin num-handler     # and likewise for long-double
> 
> and then things will be back in sync.

I think so too.  Seems correct to me.  Go for it!

[Sometimes I am slightly confused by the various syntax due to the
available git syntax shortcuts and like you have done I like to test
it out with a local scratch repository to verify it before doing it to
a public remote.  Definitely a good idea.]

> My question is - what mechanisms are in place to recover the main repo
> as it is now, in case I screw something up?

AFAIK there are two.  1. Things are backed up.  If we need to recover
we can request a backup restore from sysadmin.  This is the blanket
site protection against catastrophe.  However also AFAIK that is only
available as a sysadmin function.  We would put in a sysadmin request.

2. More nicely to us because we have direct access is that if you have
your own backup then the Savannah hackers may restore directly from
your backup copy.  This is what we would normally do.

Since every full git repository is a full backup the operation for you
as the maintainer is safe as long as you have your own backup of the
repository with all of the branches that need to be backed up.  Since
as you see you can always push the copy back up to the repository
using git itself for the operation.  In this way it is operated as a
distributed backup system.

Additionally a Savannah hacker could make an individual backup as a
special request if you felt that was necessary.  In this case though
as long as you yourself have a good full git repository then we would
more easily be able to use it to restore through the git push
interface.  If for whatever reason there was something preventing it
(hooks preventing the push?) then we would deal with it directly.

So I say, "Go for it!"

Bob