CODEWITHSUNDEEP
githttp2
Zarathustra
Zarathustra

Reputation: 2953

Can git clone benefit from http2

Can git clone benefit from http2?

I do always prefer ssh over http(s) because of various network errors but also ssh seems to be a bit faster than http(s). So my question is: Could git, especially clone, benefit from http2 s multiplexing functionality for example?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 778

Answers (2)

VonC
VonC

Reputation: 1327584

This (http2 support) wasn't discussed much in the mailing list.

The only occurrence was about a GSoC 2015 project about git fetch:

Due to http limitations and stateless decision, a lot of data is sent back and forth during have/want negotiation for smart-http. I wonder if we could implement the "long polling" scheme in a CGI program. The program terminates HTTP requests and recreates a full duplex connection for upload-pack to talk to the client. upload-pack falls back to the normal mode, used by git:// and ssh://.

So basically Git-over-TCP-over-HTTP? :)

Yes. The hidden agenda was, if it works well, we might be able to deprecate smart-http one day. That day, if happens, would be in far future though. By that time hopefully we could just use http2 insteadof tcp-over-http1.

So yes, it could benefit Git, but its implementation is not yet actively pursued.

Upvotes: 1

Joe
Joe

Reputation: 31087

The smart protocol over HTTP uses a few long-running requests; HTTP/2 would not benefit dramatically here.

By contrast, the dumb protocol makes far more separate requests, and could benefit. However:

The dumb protocol is fairly rarely used these days. It’s difficult to secure or make private, so most Git hosts (both cloud-based and on-premises) will refuse to use it.

In practice, without designing a new protocol to take advantage of HTTP/2, I would expect SSH to continue to give the best results.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions