TAG-TO-UPLOAD - DEBIAN - SERVICE DESIGN / DEPLOYMENT PLAN
=========================================================

Overall structure and dataflow
------------------------------

 * Uploader (DD or DM) makes signed git tag (containing metadata
   forming instructions to tag2upload service)

 * Uploader pushes said tag to salsa. [1]

 * salsa sends webhook to tag2upload service.

 * tag2upload service
    : provides an HTTPS service accessible to salsa
    : fishes url and tag name out of webhook json
    : checks to see if the tag is at all relevant
    : retrieves tag data (git shallow clone)
    ! verifies signature on the tag
    ! parses the tag metadata
    ! checks that salsa repo url is basically sane
    ! checks to see if signed by DD, or DM for appropriate package
    - obtains relevant git history
    - obtains, if applicable, orig tarball from archive
    - makes source package
    # signs source package and "canonical view" git tag
    - pushes history and both tags to dgit-repos git server
    - uploads source package to archive
    ! reports activities by email
    : shows status of package building to enquirers via www

 * archive publishes package as normal

[1] In principle other git servers would be possible but it would have
to be restricted to ones where we can either avoid, or stop, them
being used as a channel for a DoS attack against the tag2upload
service.

Privsep
-------

The tag2upload service will have to have a signing key that can upload
source packages to the archive.

We do not want that signing key to be abused.  In particular, even
though it will be in a hardware token we want to avoid giving
unrestricted access to use that key, to code which itself has a large
attack surface.  In particular, source package construction is very
complex.

So there will be a privilege separation arrangement, as described
above.  Different tasks run in a different security context:

    : runs on the Manager, which is web-accessible and
      not trusted very much

    ! is fully trusted and has access to the signing key

    - runs in the discardable VM or container, controlled by `!'

    # is achieved by the `dgit rpush' protocol, where the trusted
      (invoking, signing) part offers a restricted signing oracle to
      the less-trusted (building) part.

      The signing oracle will check that the files to be signed are
      roughly in the right form and that they name the right source
      package.  It will construct the "canonical view" git tag itself
      from metadata provided by the building part.

      The signing oracle has the information from the now-verified git
      tag (since it operating in the context of a particular request)
      and will only sign for the same source package and version.

Service architecture
--------------------

I propose the following architecture for the tag2upload service.

There are three systems involved:

I. Manager (`:`)

Hardly trusted.

 * Database (sqlite) containing queue, and historical data.

 * Conventional webserver offering TLS and using Let's Encrypt.

 * Manager daemon.

Manager daemon has the following tasks:

 * Web-service-style "application server" written in some scripting
   language listens on a local TCP port, handles HTTP connections
   proxied by the webserver.

 * Receives webbook requests.
   Checks that the calling IP address is salsa.
   Parses the JSON.  Checks tag name to see if it seems of interest.
   If so, fetches the actual tag data (git shallow clone)
   and sees if it looks plausible, and if so, stores it in the db.
   If an Oracle client is waiting, feeds it the tag and url.

 * Server for very simple protocol, used by Oracle to obtain work to do.
   Accessed via ssh with restricted key (`ssh ... nc`).

 * Manager daemon web service also offers basic query API
   and web pages showing recent activity, for human tracking.
   (To all comers.)

II. Oracle (`!`)

Trusted to use the signing key.  (Key itself is in a hardware token.)
Not exposed to source package contents.   Not exposed to the web.
Not exposed via the git protocol, not even as a client.

 * Uses ssh to connect to manager's simple Oracle protocol port.
   Manager sends Oracle the signed tag, and repository URL.

 * Sends an email saying what it is about to process.
   (We do this in the Oracle so that less-trusted components
   don't get to hide their misbheaviours by not sending reports.)

 * Checks that the tag is signed by someone in the keyring
   (and that it uses a good enough hash function).
   (Oracle has a copy of the keyrings and dm allow list.)

 * Parses the tag to find the metadata including
   source package name, target suite, and version.
   Checks that the signer is authorised for this package.

 * Checks that the source repository URL is basically sane.
   (But does not access it - the Builder does that, below.)

 * Arranges that the Builder is reset (see below).

 * ssh's to the Builder to have the builder fetch the git data.

 * Runs dgit rpush, specifying the package, version and
   target suite on the command line.  Target host is the Builder.
   (We use the existing dgit rpush signing oracle protocol, except extended
   to include the new SOURCE_VERSION.git.tar.xz described below.)

 * Sends an email saying what it did.

 * Reports the outcome success/failure and a summary line
   to the Manager via the still-open manager protocol connection.

III. Builder (`-`)

Does the actual source package conversion.
Largely trusts the Oracle.
Trusted as to source package contents, but not otherwise.

Oracle can reset this.  So it is a VM or a chroot.
We propose to use the same schroot configuration as for a buildd,
subject to consultation with DSA as to the best approach.

 * On instructions from the Oracle (via incoming ssh):
   
   - Fetches the git objects for the maintainer's tag from Salsa.
   - Fetches the git objects for the existing canonical view
     from the dgit-repos git server.
   - Fetches necessary origs from the archive.
   - Converts the git history to the canonical form (treesame to
     the source package) by adding necessary synthetic commits.
   - Builds the source package
   - Uses the rpush protocol to obtain signed git tag
     (on the canonical git form)
     and signed .dsc and .changes.
   - Pushes the git objects to the dgit-repos server.
   - Uploads the .dsc and .changes to the archive.

 * Packet filter limiting outgoing connections to salsa,
   dgit-repos, and the Debian archive,
   Incoming connections come only from the Oracle.

Reproducibility, metadata and auditing
--------------------------------------

The trusted part of the tag2upload service will keep some logs,
particularly of each tag it is told about and what the disposition of
that was, and when it was retried.

Also, it will send the following information to a public mailing list:
  - The tag object data for any tag it decides to process,
     before it passes it to the VM.
  - A report (more or less, a shell transcript)
     of each processing attempt
  - The list will also be the public email address of the
     tag2upload robot's signing key

The generated .dscs will contain additional fields

  Git-Tag-Tagger: Firstname Surname <email@address>

      "tagger" line from the git tag converted to deb822 format

  Git-Tag-Info: tag=<tagobjid> fp=<fingerprint>

      <tagobjid> is the git object ID of the tag object
          (if someone wants to obtain referenced git objects,
	   they can be found on the dgit-repos git server)

      <fingerprint> is the "fingerprint_in_hex" from the VALIDSIG line
      in the gpgv output.

This additional metadata is needed to be able to tell by looking at
the .dsc who the original uploader was (which might be different to
the maintainer, in the sponsorship case).  (Programs which use the
uploader signature identity will send mails to the mailing list
mentioned above, until they have been updated.  This is not desirable
but not a blocker for deployment.)

The generated .changes will contain copies of the two .dsc fields
above.

The upload will contain a .source_buildinfo.  This will list the
versions of the software running in the Builder, which is primarily what
controls the generated .dsc.

The versions of dgit-infrastructure and git running in the trusted
part are also relevant because the trusted part assembles outgoing
tagger lines etc. and interprets the incoming git tag; however, in our
deployment we intend to maintain them in sync, and anyway our ad-hoc
reproduction tooling will not be able to arrange for them to be
different.  So the outside-VM version information will not be
included.

Eventually there could be a mode for sbuild (related to
binary build reproduction), or a suitable script, which can verify a
reproduction attempt.  For now the src:dgit test suite will check that
the upload is reproducible if run again in the same environment.

SOURCE_VERSION.git.tar.xz
=========================

The .changes will also contain a file SOURCE_VERSION.git.tar.xz which is
a compressed git repository with the following properties:

 * It has the ref debian/VERSION, the maintainer's signed tag.
 * It is sufficient on its own to (re)produce the canonical git view.
   It is jointly sufficient, together with the orig.tar, to (re)produce
   the source package.
   (When the upload including the .git.tar.xz does not contain the
   full source, this means the orig.tar that's already in the archive.)
 * These reproductions are up to equality of file names and contents
   -- timestamps of files may differ.
 * It is usually shallow, for performance and storage space reasons.
 * It may be a bare repository; or, it might be that no branch is
   checked out.

This .git.tar.xz is for the purpose of third-party auditing of what
tag2upload did.  There will be a Python script in dgit.git, called
mini-git-tag-fsck, which will take the .git.tar.xz as input, and produce
two forms of auditing output:

 * It extracts the maintainer's signed tag and deconstructs it into two
   files, the tag text, and the detached signature.
 * It prints to standard output a list of all files in the tagged
   commit, with their git checksums (their object IDs).
   It does this by walking the Merkle tree whose head is the
   debian/VERSION signed tag object, re-checksumming as it goes.

mini-git-tag-fsck has the following other properties:

 * It does not verify the signature on the tag.
   That is left to the caller.
 * Given that the signature on the tag *is* valid, then all of the
   script's own output is (transitively, via SHA1CD hashing) covered by
   that signature, and so the output faithfully represents the intent of
   the person who signed the tag.

 * It does not invoke git, or anything from libgit2, or any other
   external code of comparable complexity.
 * It is designed to process only tag2upload's .git.tar.xz repositories;
   it cannot process arbitrary git repositories.

   Although the .git.tar.xz contains a bona fide git repository,
   special arrangements are made regarding packfiles versus loose
   objects to facilitate mini-git-tag-fsck's being able to process it
   without invoking git/libgit2/etc..

mini-git-tag-fsck will also have a mode to generate the .git.tar.xz.
This will be invoked by the tag2upload service as part of preparing the
upload.  (This mode will need to call out to git/libgit2/etc..)

tag handling and future extensions
----------------------------------

 * The tag2upload(5) tag spec provides space to add additional
   information to tags without causing problems for existing consumers
   of the metadata.  This is important for nonbreaking extensibility.

 * The tag spec also provides a way to add extensions
   that *do* cause older tag parsers that don't understand the
   extension to reject the whole tag rather than just ignore the extra
   information.  This is done by prefixing the item keyword with a !.

 * The parser on the principal boundary - the Oracle - is set up to
   reject such items.  It is also responsible for reporting the rejection
   of unknown critical items to the uploading user.

 * tag2upload-service-manager *accepts* unknown critical items, and passes
   them to the Oracle, which is responsible for deciding if they're OK.
   (We expect that most new items will be directed to the Oracle.)

   If we introduce a new critical item which is to be processed by the
   Manager, we must ensure that we deploy the Manager code that understands
   it, before we deploy the Oracle code which will (presumably) ignore it.

 * The ftp archive has a more relaxed interpretation, but but it is
   defended from misunderstandings by the fact that it insists on a
   .changes signature from the tag2upload service - which will in turn
   reject tags containing essential but unknown items.

   So we do not have to deploy changes to dak if we add new extensions
   that don't need to affect dak's processing.  An example would be a
   "this has been tested" countersignature-from-CI:
     https://salsa.debian.org/freexian-team/debusine/-/issues/815#note_49ce643d86dd723db5a4540f300498a2faee4746
   If we were to define a new essential item targeted at dak, we would
   need to deploy the new version of dak before the new version of the
   t2u service.  The t2u design principles make this scenario fairly
   unlikely.

Emails
------

Emails are sent to:

 1. The username associated with the signing key
 2. The tagger (email address from the git tag object)
 3. A public mailing list selected (or created) for the purpose

1 and 2 will often be the same.
This provides feedback to the person making the signature.
The person preparing (rather than, maybe, sponsoring) the upload
(Changed-By in .changes) will be notified by the archive software.

The email report will contain at least:

 * The target distro, package, suite and version
 * The URL from which the git objectx were downloadeed
 * Whether the operation succeeded, and error messages if it didn't.

Email is sent by the Oracle feeding a file to
`ssh smarthost sendmail -t` not by implementing SMTP,
to reduce the attack surface.

DoS
---

This service is not very resistant to DoS attacks.  In particular,
sending it bad URLs might stall it (since it has to retry failing
URLs).

So we (i) do not expose it to anyone but salsa and (ii) limit it to
trying to fetch salsa urls.

Making very many tags on salsa would stress this tag2upload service a
bit but not fatally, and it would be a DoS against salsa too.

After signature verification, we are much more vulnerable to DoS.  An
approved signer can get the service to do a lot of work.  That is the
purpose of the service, indeed.

Cross-references
----------------

The starting point for users is the information in the wiki:
  https://wiki.debian.org/tag2upload

Notes and procedures for the service operators are in the notes repo:
  https://salsa.debian.org/dgit-team/dgit-infra-notes-scripts
