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+# A Git Horror Story: Repository Integrity With Signed Commits
+
+_(Note: This article was written at the end of 2012 and is out of date. I
+will update it at some point, but until then, please keep that in
+perspective.)_
+
+It's 2:00 AM. The house is quiet, the kid is in bed and your significant other
+has long since fallen asleep on the couch waiting for you, the light of the TV
+flashing out of the corner of your eye. Your mind and body are exhausted.
+Satisfied with your progress for the night, you commit the code you've been
+hacking for hours: `"[master 2e4fd96] Fixed security vulnerability CVE-123"`.
+You push your changes to your host so that others can view and comment on your
+progress before tomorrow's critical release, suspend your PC and struggle to
+wake your significant other to get him/her in bed. You turn off the lights, trip
+over a toy on your way to the bedroom and sigh as you realize you're going to
+have to make a bottle for the child who just heard his/her favorite toy jingle.
+
+Fast forward four sleep-deprived hours. You are woken to the sound of your phone
+vibrating incessantly. You smack it a few times, thinking it's your alarm clock,
+then fumble half-blind as you try to to dig it out from under the bed after you
+knock it off the nightstand. (Oops, you just woke the kid up again.) You pick up
+the phone and are greeted by a frantic colleague. "I merged in our changes. We
+need to tag and get this fix out there." Ah, damnit. You wake up your
+significant other, asking him/her to deal with the crying child (yeah, that went
+well) and stumble off to your PC, failing your first attempt to enter your
+password. You rub your eyes and pull the changes.
+
+Still squinting, you glance at the flood of changes presented to you. Your
+child is screaming in the background, not amused by your partner's feeble
+attempts to console him/her. `git log --pretty=short`...everything looks
+good---just a bunch of commits from you and your colleague that were merged in.
+You run the test suite---everything passes. Looks like you're ready to go. `git
+tag -s 1.2.3 -m 'Various bugfixes, including critical CVE-123' && git push
+--tags`. After struggling to enter the password to your private key, slowly
+standing up from your chair as you type, you run off to help with the baby
+(damnit, where do they keep the source code for these things). Your CI system
+will handle the rest.
+
+Fast forward two months.
+
+CVE-123 has long been fixed and successfully deployed. However, you receive an
+angry call from your colleague. It seems that one of your most prominent users
+has had a massive security breach. After researching the problem, your colleague
+found that, according to the history, _the breach exploited a back door that you
+created!_ What? You would never do such a thing. To make matters worse, `1.2.3`
+was signed off by you, using your GPG key---you affirmed that this tag was
+good and ready to go. "3-b-c-4-2-b, asshole", scorns your colleague. "Thanks
+a lot."
+
+No---that doesn't make sense. You quickly check the history. `git log --patch
+3bc42b`. "Added missing docblocks for X, Y and Z." You form a puzzled
+expression, raising your hands from the keyboard slightly before tapping the
+space bar a few times with few expectations. Sure enough, in with a few minor
+docblock changes, there was one very inconspicuous line change that added the
+back door to the authentication system. The commit message is fairly clear and
+does not raise any red flags---why would you check it? Furthermore, the
+author of the commit _was indeed you!_
+
+Thoughts race through your mind. How could this have happened? That commit has
+your name, but you do not recall ever having made those changes. Furthermore,
+you would have never made that line change; it simply does not make sense. Did
+your colleague frame you by committing as you? Was your colleague's system
+compromised? Was your _host_ compromised? It couldn't have been your local
+repository; that commit was clearly part of the merge and did not exist in your
+local repository until your pull on that morning two months ago.
+
+Regardless of what happened, one thing is horrifically clear: right now, you are
+the one being blamed.
+
+
+
+## Who Do You Trust? {#trust}
+
+Theorize all you want---it's possible that you may never fully understand what
+resulted in the compromise of your repository. The above story is purely
+hypothetical, but entirely within the realm of possibility. How can you rest
+assured that your repository is safe for not only those who would reference or
+clone it, but also those who may download, for example, tarballs that are
+created from it?
+
+Git is a [distributed revision control
+system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_revision_control). In
+short, this means that anyone can have a copy of your repository to work on
+offline, in private. They may commit to their own repository and users may
+push/pull from each other. A central repository is unnecessary for
+distributed revision control systems, but [may be used to provide an
+"official" hub that others can work on and clone
+from](http://lwn.net/Articles/246381/). Consequently, this also means that a
+repository floating around for project X may contain malicious code; just
+because someone else hands you a repository for your project doesn't mean
+that you should actually use it.
+
+The question is not "Who _can_ you trust?"; the question is "Who _do_ you
+trust?", or rather---who _are_ you trusting with your repository, right now,
+even if you do not realize it? For most projects, including the story above,
+there are a number of individuals or organizations that you may have
+inadvertently placed your trust in without fully considering the ramifications
+of such a decision:
+
+Git Host
+: Git hosting providers are probably the most easily overlooked
+ trustees---providers like Gitorious, GitHub, Bitbucket, SourceForge, Google
+ Code, etc. Each provides hosting for your repository and "secures" it by
+ allowing only you, or other authorized users, to push to it, often with the
+ use of SSH keys tied to an account. By using a host as the primary holder of
+ your repository---the repository from which most clone and push to---you are
+ entrusting them with the entirety of your project; you are stating, "Yes, I
+ trust that my source code is safe with you and will not be tampered with".
+ This is a dangerous assumption. Do you trust that your host properly secures
+ your account information? Furthermore, bugs exist in all but the most
+ trivial pieces of software, so what is to say that there is not a
+ vulnerability just waiting to be exploited in your host's system, completely
+ compromising your repository?
+
+ It was not too long ago (March 4th, 2012) that [a public key security
+ vulnerability at
+ GitHub](https://github.com/blog/1068-public-key-security-vulnerability-and-mitigation)
+ was [exploited](https://gist.github.com/1978249) by a Russian man named
+ [Egor
+ Homakov](http://homakov.blogspot.com/2012/03/im-disappoint-github.html),
+ allowing him to successfully [commit to the master branch of the Ruby on
+ Rails
+ framework](https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/b83965785db1eec019edf1fc272b1aa393e6dc57)
+ repository hosted on GitHub. Oops.
+
+Friends and Coworkers/Colleagues
+: There may be certain groups or individuals that you trust enough to (a) pull
+ or accept patches from or (b) allow them to push to you or a
+ central/"official" repository. Operating under the assumption that each
+ individual is truly trustworthy (and let us hope that is the case), that
+ does not immediately imply that their _repository_ can be trusted. What are
+ their security policies? Do they leave their PC unlocked and unattended? Do
+ they make a habit of downloading virus-laden pornography on an unsecured,
+ non-free operating system? Or perhaps, through no fault of their own, they
+ are running a piece of software that is vulnerable to a 0-day exploit. Given
+ that, _how can you be sure that their commits are actually their own_?
+ Furthermore, how can you be sure that any commits they approve (or sign off
+ on using `git commit -s`) were actually approved by them?
+
+ That is, of course, assuming that they have no ill intent. For example, what
+ of the pissed off employee looking to get the arrogant, obnoxious co-worker
+ fired by committing under the coworker's name/email? What if you were the
+ manager or project lead? Whose word would you take? How would you even know
+ whom to suspect?
+
+Your Own Repository
+: Linus Torvalds (original author of Git and the kernel Linux) [keeps a
+ secured repository on his personal computer, inaccessible by any
+ external means](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8) to ensure
+ that he has a repository he can fully trust. Most developers simply keep
+ a local copy on whatever PC they happen to be hacking on and pay no mind
+ to security---their repository is likely hosted elsewhere as well, after
+ all; Git is distributed. This is, however, a very serious matter.
+
+ You likely use your PC for more than just hacking. Most notably, you likely
+ use your PC to browse the Internet and download software. Software is buggy.
+ Buggy software has exploits and exploits tend to get, well, exploited. Not
+ every developer has a strong understanding of the best security practices
+ for their operating system (if you do, great!). And no---simply using
+ GNU/Linux or any other *NIX variant does not make you immune from every
+ potential threat.
+
+To dive into each of these a bit more deeply, let us consider one of the
+world's largest free software projects---the kernel Linux---and how its
+original creator Linus Torvalds handles issues of trust. During [a talk he
+presented at Google in 2007](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8), he
+describes a network of trust he created between himself and a number of
+others (which he refers to as his "lieutenants"). Linus himself cannot
+possibly manage the mass amount of code that is sent to him, so he has
+others handle portions of the kernel. Those "lieutenants" handle most of the
+requests, then submit them to Linus, who handles merging into his own
+branch. In doing so, he has trusted that these lieutenants know what they
+are doing, are carefully looking over each patch and that the patches Linus
+receives from them are actually from them.
+
+I am not aware of how patches are communicated from the lieutenants to Linus.
+Certainly, one way to state with a fairly high level of certainty that the patch
+is coming from one of his "lieutenants" is to e-mail the patches, signed with
+their respective GPG/PGP keys. At that point, the web of trust is enforced by
+the signature. Linus is then sure that his private repository (which he does his
+best to secure, as aforementioned) contains only data that _he personally
+trusts_. His repository is safe, so far as he knows, and he can use it
+confidently.
+
+At this point, assuming Linus' web of trust is properly verified, how can he
+confidently convey these trusted changes to others? He certainly knows his own
+commits, but how should others know that this "Linus Torvalds" guy who has
+been committing and signing off of on commits is _actually_ Linus Torvalds? As
+demonstrated in the hypothetical scenario at the beginning of this article,
+anyone could claim to be Linus. If an attacker were to gain access to any clone
+of the repository and commit as Linus, nobody would know the difference.
+Fortunately, one can get around this by signing a tag with his/her private key
+using GPG (`git tag -s`). A tag points to a particular commit and that commit
+[depends on the entire history leading up to that commit](#commit-history).
+This means that signing the SHA1 hash of that commit, assuming no security
+vulnerabilities within SHA1, will forever state that the entire history of the
+given commit, as pointed to by the given tag, is trusted.
+
+Well, that is helpful, but that doesn't help to verify any commits made _after_
+the tag (until the next tag comes around that includes that commit as an
+ancestor of the new tag). Nor does it necessarily guarantee the integrity of all
+past commits---it only states that, _to the best of Linus' knowledge_, this
+tree is trusted. Notice how the hypothetical you in our hypothetical story also
+signed the tag with his/her private key. Unfortunately, he/she fell prey to
+something that is all too common---human error. He/she trusted that his/her
+"trusted" colleague could actually be fully trusted. Wouldn't it be nice if we
+could remove some of that human error from the equation?
+
+
+## Ensuring Trust {#trust-ensure}
+
+What if we had a way to ensure that a commit by someone named "Mike Gerwitz"
+with my e-mail address is _actually_ a commit from myself, much like we
+can assert that a tag signed with my private key was actually tagged by myself?
+Well, who are we trying to prove this to? If you are only proving your identity
+to a project author/maintainer, then you can identify yourself in any reasonable
+manner. For example, if you work within the same internal network, perhaps you
+can trust that pushes from the internal IP are secure. If sending via e-mail,
+you can sign the patch using your GPG key. Unfortunately, _these only extend
+this level of trust to the author/maintainer, not other users!_ If I were to
+clone your repository and look at the history, how do I know that a commit from
+"Foo Bar" is truly a commit from Foo Bar, especially if the repository
+frequently accepts patches and merge requests from many users?
+
+Previously, only tags could be signed using GPG. Fortunately, [Git v1.7.9
+introduced the ability to GPG-sign individual
+commits](http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/RelNotes/1.7.9.txt;hb=HEAD)---a
+feature I have been long awaiting. Consider what may have happened to the
+story at the beginning of this article if you signed each of your commits
+like so:
+
+```sh
+$ git commit -S -m 'Fixed security vulnerability CVE-123'
+# ^ GPG-sign commit
+```
+
+Notice the `-S` flag above, instructing Git to sign the commit using your
+GPG key (please note the difference between `-s` and `-S`). If you followed this
+practice for each of your commits---with no exceptions---then you (or anyone
+else, for that matter) could say with relative certainty that the commit was
+indeed authored by yourself. In the case of our story, you could then defend
+yourself, stating that if the backdoor commit truly were yours, it would have
+been signed. (Of course, one could argue that you simply did not sign that
+commit in order to use that excuse. We'll get into addressing such an issue in a
+bit.)
+
+In order to set up your signing key, you first need to get your key id using
+`gpg --list-secret-keys`:
+
+```sh
+$ gpg --list-secret-keys | grep ^sec
+sec 4096R/8EE30EAB 2011-06-16 [expires: 2014-04-18]
+# ^^^^^^^^
+```
+
+You are interested in the hexadecimal value immediately following the forward
+slash in the above output (your output may vary drastically; do not worry if
+your key does not contain `4096R` as above). If you have multiple secret
+keys, select the one you wish to use for signing your commits. This value will
+be assigned to the Git configuration value `user.signingkey`:
+
+```sh
+# remove --global to use this key only on the current repository
+$ git config --global user.signingkey 8EE30EAB
+# ^ replace with your key id
+```
+
+Given the above, let's give commit signing a shot. To do so, we will create a
+test repository and work through that for the remainder of this article.
+
+```sh
+$ mkdir tmp && cd tmp
+$ git init .
+$ echo foo > foo
+$ git add foo
+$ git commit -S -m 'Test commit of foo'
+
+You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
+user: "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+4096-bit RSA key, ID 8EE30EAB, created 2011-06-16
+
+[master (root-commit) cf43808] Test commit of foo
+ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
+ create mode 100644 foo
+```
+
+The only thing that has been done differently between this commit and an
+unsigned commit is the addition of the `-S` flag, indicating that we want
+to GPG-sign the commit. If everything has been set up properly, you should be
+prompted for the password to your secret key (unless you have `gpg-agent`
+running), after which the commit will continue as you would expect, resulting in
+something similar to the above output (your GPG details and SHA-1 hash will
+differ).
+
+By default (at least in Git v1.7.9), `git log` will not list or validate
+signatures. In order to display the signature for our commit, we may use the
+`--show-signature` option, as shown below:
+
+```sh
+$ git log --show-signature
+commit cf43808e85399467885c444d2a37e609b7d9e99d
+gpg: Signature made Fri 20 Apr 2012 11:59:01 PM EDT using RSA key ID 8EE30EAB
+gpg: Good signature from "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+Author: Mike Gerwitz
+Date: Fri Apr 20 23:59:01 2012 -0400
+
+ Test commit of foo
+```
+
+There is an important distinction to be made here---the commit author and the
+signature attached to the commit _may represent two different people_. In other
+words: the commit signature is similar in concept to the `-s` option, which adds
+a `Signed-off` line to the commit---it verifies that you have signed off on
+the commit, but does not necessarily imply that you authored it. To demonstrate
+this, consider that we have received a patch from "John Doe" that we wish to
+apply. The policy for our repository is that every commit must be signed by a
+trusted individual; all other commits will be rejected by the project
+maintainers. To demonstrate without going through the hassle of applying an
+actual patch, we will simply do the following:
+
+```sh
+$ echo patch from John Doe >> foo
+$ git commit -S --author="John Doe " -am 'Added feature X'
+
+You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
+user: "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+4096-bit RSA key, ID 8EE30EAB, created 2011-06-16
+
+[master 16ddd46] Added feature X
+ Author: John Doe
+ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
+$ git log --show-signature
+commit 16ddd46b0c191b0e130d0d7d34c7fc7af03f2d3e
+gpg: Signature made Sat 21 Apr 2012 12:14:38 AM EDT using RSA key ID 8EE30EAB
+gpg: Good signature from "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+Author: John Doe
+Date: Sat Apr 21 00:14:38 2012 -0400
+
+ Added feature X
+# [...]
+```
+
+This then raises the question---what is to be done about those who decide to
+sign their commit with their own GPG key? There are a couple options here.
+First, consider the issue from a maintainer's perspective---do we necessary
+care about the identity of a 3rd party contributor, so long as the provided code
+is acceptable? That depends. From a legal standpoint, we may, but not every user
+has a GPG key. Given that, someone creating a key for the sole purpose of
+signing a few commits without some means of identity verification, only to
+discard the key later (or forget that it exists) does little to verify one's
+identity. (Indeed, the whole concept behind PGP is to create a web of trust by
+being able to verify that the person who signed using their key is actually who
+they say they are, so such a scenario defeats the purpose.) Therefore, adopting
+a strict signing policy for everyone who contributes a patch is likely to be
+unsuccessful. Linux and Git satisfy this legal requirement with a
+`"Signed-off-by"` line in the commit, signifying that the author agrees to the
+[Developer's Certificate of
+Origin](http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=blob;f=Documentation/SubmittingPatches;h=0dbf2c9843dd3eed014d788892c8719036287308;hb=HEAD);
+this essentially states that the author has the legal rights to the code
+contained within the commit. When accepting patches from 3rd parties who are
+outside of your web of trust to begin with, this is the next best thing.
+
+To adopt this policy for patches, require that authors do the following and
+request that they do not GPG-sign their commits:
+
+```sh
+$ git commit -asm 'Signed off'
+# ^ -s flag adds Signed-off-by line
+$ git log
+commit ca05f0c2e79c5cd712050df6a343a5b707e764a9
+Author: Mike Gerwitz
+Date: Sat Apr 21 15:46:05 2012 -0400
+
+ Signed off
+
+ Signed-off-by: Mike Gerwitz
+# [...]
+```
+
+Then, when you receive the patch, you can apply it with the `-S` (capital, not
+lowercase) to GPG-sign the commit; this will preserve the Signed-off-by line as
+well. In the case of a pull request, you can sign the commit by amending it
+(`git commit -S --amend`). Note, however, that the SHA-1 hash of the commit will
+change when you do so.
+
+What if you want to preserve the signature of whomever sent the pull request?
+You cannot amend the commit, as that would alter the commit and invalidate their
+signature, so dual-signing it is not an option (if Git were to even support that
+option). Instead, you may consider signing the merge commit, which will be
+discussed in the following section.
+
+
+## Managing Large Merges
+
+Up to this point, our discussion consisted of apply patches or merging single
+commits. What shall we do, then, if we receive a pull request for a certain
+feature or bugfix with, say, 300 commits (which I assure you is not unusual)? In
+such a case, we have a few options:
+
+1. **Request that the user squash all the commits into
+ a single commit**, thereby avoiding the problem entirely by applying the
+ previously discussed methods. I personally dislike this option for a few
+ reasons:
+
+ * We can no longer follow the history of that feature/bugfix in order to
+ learn how it was developed or see alternative solutions that were
+ attempted but later replaced.
+
+ * It renders `git bisect` useless. If we find a bug in the software that
+ was introduced by a single patch consisting of 300 squashed commits,
+ we are left to dig through the code and debug ourselves, rather than
+ having Git possibly figure out the problem for us.
+
+2. **Adopt a security policy that requires signing only
+ the merge commit** (forcing a merge commit to be created with `--no-ff`
+ if needed).
+
+ * This is certainly the quickest solution, allowing a reviewer to sign
+ the merge after having reviewed the diff in its entirety.
+
+ * However, it leaves individual commits open to exploitation. For
+ example, one commit may introduce a payload that a future commit
+ removes, thereby hiding it from the overall diff, but introducing
+ terrible effect should the commit be checked out individually (e.g. by
+ `git bisect`). Squashing all commits ([option #1](#merge-1)), signing
+ each commit individually ([option #3](#merge-3)), or simply reviewing
+ each commit individually before performing the merge (without signing
+ each individual commit) would prevent this problem.
+
+ * This also does not fully prevent the situation mentioned in the
+ hypothetical story at the beginning of this article---others can still
+ commit with you as the author, but the commit would not have been
+ signed.
+
+ * Preserves the SHA-1 hashes of each individual commit.
+
+3. **Sign each commit to be introduced by the merge.**
+
+ * The tedium of this chore can be greatly reduced by using
+ http://www.gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg/Invoking-GPG_002dAGENT.html[
+ `gpg-agent`].
+
+ * Be sure to carefully review _each commit_ rather than the entire diff to
+ ensure that no malicious commits sneak into the history (see bullets
+ for [option #2](#merge-2)). If you instead decide to script the sign
+ of each commit without reviewing each individual diff, you may as well
+ go with [option #2](#merge-2).
+
+ * Also useful if one needs to cherry-pick individual commits, since that would
+ result in all commits having been signed.
+
+ * One may argue that this option is unnecessarily redundant, considering that
+ one can simply review the individual commits without signing them, then
+ simply sign the merge commit to signify that all commits have been
+ reviewed ([option #2](#merge-2)). The important point to note here is
+ that this option offers _proof_ that each commit was reviewed (unless
+ it is automated).
+
+ * This will create a new for each (the SHA-1 hash is not preserved).
+
+Which of the three options you choose depends on what factors are important and
+feasible for your particular project. Specifically:
+
+* If history is not important to you, then you can avoid a lot of trouble by
+ simply requiring the the commits be squashed ([option #1](#merge-1)).
+
+* If history _is_ important to you, but you do not have the time to review
+ individual commits:
+
+ * Use [option #2](#merge-2) if you understand its risks.
+
+ * Otherwise, use [option #3](#merge-3), but _do not_ automate the signing
+ process to avoid having to look at individual commits. If you wish to keep
+ the history, do so responsibly.
+
+Option #1 in the list above can easily be applied to the discussion in the
+previous section.
+
+
+### (Option #2)
+
+[Option #2](#merge-2) is as simple as passing the `-S` argument to `git
+merge`. If the merge is a fast-forward (that is, all commits can simply be
+applied atop of `HEAD` without any need for merging), then you would need to use
+the `--no-ff` option to force a merge commit.
+
+```sh
+# set up another branch to merge
+$ git checkout -b bar
+$ echo bar > bar
+$ git add bar
+$ git commit -m 'Added bar'
+$ echo bar2 >> bar
+$ git commit -am 'Modified bar'
+$ git checkout master
+
+# perform the actual merge (will be a fast-forward, so --no-ff is needed)
+$ git merge -S --no-ff bar
+# ^ GPG-sign merge commit
+
+You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
+user: "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+4096-bit RSA key, ID 8EE30EAB, created 2011-06-16
+
+Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.
+ bar | 2 ++
+ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
+ create mode 100644 bar
+```
+
+Inspecting the log, we will see the following:
+
+```sh
+$ git log --show-signature
+commit ebadba134bde7ae3d39b173bf8947a69be089cf6
+gpg: Signature made Sun 22 Apr 2012 11:36:17 AM EDT using RSA key ID 8EE30EAB
+gpg: Good signature from "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+Merge: 652f9ae 031f6ee
+Author: Mike Gerwitz
+Date: Sun Apr 22 11:36:15 2012 -0400
+
+ Merge branch 'bar'
+
+commit 031f6ee20c1fe601d2e808bfb265787d56732974
+Author: Mike Gerwitz
+Date: Sat Apr 21 17:35:27 2012 -0400
+
+ Modified bar
+
+commit ce77088d85dee3d687f1b87d21c7dce29ec2cff1
+Author: Mike Gerwitz
+Date: Sat Apr 21 17:35:20 2012 -0400
+
+ Added bar
+# [...]
+```
+
+Notice how the merge commit contains the signature, but the two commits involved
+in the merge (`031f6ee` and `ce77088`) do not. Herein lies the problem---what
+if commit `031f6ee` contained the backdoor mentioned in the story at the
+beginning of the article? This commit is supposedly authored by you, but because
+it lacks a signature, it could actually be authored by anyone. Furthermore, if
+`ce77088` contained malicious code that was removed in `031f6ee`, then it would
+not show up in the diff between the two branches. That, however, is an issue
+that needs to be addressed by your security policy. Should you be reviewing
+individual commits? If so, a review would catch any potential problems with the
+commits and wouldn't require signing each commit individually. The merge itself
+could be representative of "Yes, I have reviewed each commit individually and I
+see no problems with these changes."
+
+If the commitment to reviewing each individual commit is too large, consider
+[Option #1](#merge-1).
+
+### (Option #3)
+
+[Option #3](#merge-3) in the above list makes the review of each commit
+explicit and obvious; with [option #2](#merge-2), one could simply lazily
+glance through the commits or not glance through them at all. That said, one
+could do the same with [option #3](#merge-3) by automating the signing of each
+commit, so it could be argued that this option is completely unnecessary. Use
+your best judgment.
+
+The only way to make this option remotely feasible, especially for a large
+number of commits, is to perform the audit in such a way that we do not have
+to re-enter our secret key passphrases for each and every commit. For this,
+we can use
+[`gpg-agent`](http://www.gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg/Invoking-GPG_002dAGENT.html),
+which will safely store the passphrase in memory for the next time that it
+is requested. Using `gpg-agent`, [we will only be prompted for the password
+a single
+time](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9713781/how-to-use-gpg-agent-to-bulk-sign-git-tags/10263139). Depending
+on how you start `gpg-agent`, _be sure to kill it after you are done!_
+
+The process of signing each commit can be done in a variety of ways. Ultimately,
+since signing the commit will result in an entirely new commit, the method you
+choose is of little importance. For example, if you so desired, you could
+cherry-pick individual commits and then `-S --amend` them, but that would
+not be recognized as a merge and would be terribly confusing when looking
+through the history for a given branch (unless the merge would have been a
+fast-forward). Therefore, we will settle on a method that will still produce a
+merge commit (again, unless it is a fast-forward). One such way to do this is to
+interactively rebase each commit, allowing you to easily view the diff, sign it,
+and continue onto the next commit.
+
+```sh
+# create a new audit branch off of bar
+$ git checkout -b bar-audit bar
+$ git rebase -i master
+# | ^ the branch that we will be merging into
+# ^ interactive rebase (alternatively: long option --interactive)
+```
+
+First, we create a new branch off of `bar`---`bar-audit`---to perform the
+rebase on (see `bar` branch created in demonstration of [option
+#2](#merge-2)). Then, in order to step through each commit that would be
+merged into `master`, we perform a rebase using `master` as the upstream
+branch. This will present every commit that is in `bar-audit` (and
+consequently `bar`) that is not in `master`, opening them in your preferred
+editor:
+
+```
+e ce77088 Added bar
+e 031f6ee Modified bar
+
+# Rebase 652f9ae..031f6ee onto 652f9ae
+#
+# Commands:
+# p, pick = use commit
+# r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message
+# e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending
+# s, squash = use commit, but meld into previous commit
+# f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
+# x, exec = run command (the rest of the line) using shell
+#
+# If you remove a line here THAT COMMIT WILL BE LOST.
+# However, if you remove everything, the rebase will be aborted.
+#
+```
+
+To modify the commits, replace each `pick` with `e` (or `edit`), as shown above.
+(In vim you can also do the following `ex` command: `:%s/^pick/e/`;
+adjust regex flavor for other editors). Save and close. You will then be
+presented with the first (oldest) commit:
+
+```sh
+Stopped at ce77088... Added bar
+You can amend the commit now, with
+
+ git commit --amend
+
+Once you are satisfied with your changes, run
+
+ git rebase --continue
+
+# first, review the diff (alternatively, use tig/gitk)
+$ git diff HEAD^
+# if everything looks good, sign it
+$ git commit -S --amend
+# GPG-sign ^ ^ amend commit, preserving author, etc
+
+You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
+user: "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+4096-bit RSA key, ID 8EE30EAB, created 2011-06-16
+
+[detached HEAD 5cd2d91] Added bar
+ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
+ create mode 100644 bar
+
+# continue with next commit
+$ git rebase --continue
+
+# repeat.
+$ ...
+Successfully rebased and updated refs/heads/bar-audit.
+```
+
+Looking through the log, we can see that the commits have been rewritten to
+include the signatures (consequently, the SHA-1 hashes do not match):
+
+```sh
+$ git log --show-signature HEAD~2..
+commit afb1e7373ae5e7dae3caab2c64cbb18db3d96fba
+gpg: Signature made Sun 22 Apr 2012 01:37:26 PM EDT using RSA key ID 8EE30EAB
+gpg: Good signature from "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+Author: Mike Gerwitz
+Date: Sat Apr 21 17:35:27 2012 -0400
+
+ Modified bar
+
+commit f227c90b116cc1d6770988a6ca359a8c92a83ce2
+gpg: Signature made Sun 22 Apr 2012 01:36:44 PM EDT using RSA key ID 8EE30EAB
+gpg: Good signature from "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+Author: Mike Gerwitz
+Date: Sat Apr 21 17:35:20 2012 -0400
+
+ Added bar
+```
+
+We can then continue to merge into `master` as we normally would. The next
+consideration is whether or not to sign the merge commit as we would with
+[option #2](#merge-2). In the case of our example, the merge is a
+fast-forward, so the merge commit is unnecessary (since the commits being merged
+are already signed, we have no need to create a merge commit using `--no-ff`
+purely for the purpose of signing it). However, consider that you may perform
+the audit yourself and leave the actual merge process to someone else; perhaps
+the project has a system in place where project maintainers must review the code
+and sign off on it, and then other developers are responsible for merging and
+managing conflicts. In that case, you may want a clear record of who merged the
+changes in.
+
+
+## Enforcing Trust
+
+Now that you have determined a security policy appropriate for your particular
+project/repository (well, hypothetically at least), some way is needed to
+enforce your signing policies. While manual enforcement is possible, it is
+subject to human error, peer scrutiny ("just let it through!") and is
+unnecessarily time-consuming. Fortunately, this is one of those things that you
+can script, sit back and enjoy.
+
+Let us first focus on the simpler of automation tasks---checking to ensure
+that _every_ commit is both signed and trusted (within our web of trust). Such
+an implementation would also satisfy [option #3](#merge-3) in regards to
+merging. Well, perhaps not every commit will be considered. Chances are, you
+have an existing repository with a decent number of commits. If you were to go
+back and sign all those commits, you would completely alter the history of the
+entire repository, potentially creating headaches for other users. Instead, you
+may consider beginning your checks _after_ a certain commit.
+
+### Commit History In a Nutshell {#commit-history}
+
+The SHA-1 hashes of each commit in Git are created using the delta _and_ header
+information for each commit. This header information includes the commit's
+_parent_, whose header contains its parent---so on and so forth. In addition,
+Git depends on the entire history of the repository leading up to a given commit
+to construct the requested revision. Consequently, this means that the history
+cannot be altered without someone noticing (well, this is not entirely true;
+we'll discuss that in a moment). For example, consider the following branch:
+
+```
+Pre-attack:
+
+---o---o---A---B---o---o---H
+ a1b2c3d^
+```
+
+Above, `H` represents the current `HEAD` and commit identified by `A` is the
+parent of commit `B`. For the sake of discussion, let's say that commit `A` is
+identified by the SHA-1 fragment `a1b2c3d`. Let us say that an attacker decides
+to replace commit `A` with another commit. In doing so, the SHA-1 hash of the
+commit must change to match the new delta and contents of the header. This new
+commit is identified as `X`:
+
+```
+Post-attack:
+
+---o---o---X---B---o---o---H
+ d4e5f6a^ ^!expects parent a1b2c3d
+```
+
+We now have a problem; when Git encounters commit `B` (remember, Git must build
+`H` using the entire history leading up to it), it will check its SHA-1 hash and
+notice that it no longer matches the hash of its parent. The attacker is unable
+to change the expected hash in commit `B`, because the header is used to
+generate the SHA-1 hash for the commit, meaning `B` would then have a different
+SHA-1 hash (technically speaking, it would not longer be `B`---it would be an
+entirely different commit; we retain the identifier here only for demonstration
+purposes). That would then invalidate any children of `B`, so on and so forth.
+Therefore, in order to rewrite the history for a single commit, _the entire
+history after that commit must also be rewritten_ (as is done by `git rebase`).
+Should that be done, the SHA-1 hash of `H` would also need to change. Otherwise,
+`H`'s history would be invalid and Git would immediately throw an error upon
+attempting a checkout.
+
+This has a very important consequence---given any commit, we can rest
+assured that, if it exists in the repository, Git will _always_ reconstruct
+that commit exactly as it was created (including all the history leading up
+to that commit _when_ it was created), or it will not do so at all. Indeed,
+as Linus mentions in a presentation at Google, [he need only remember the
+SHA-1 hash of a single commit](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8)
+to rest assured that, given any other repository, in the event of a loss of
+his own, that commit will represent exactly the same commit that it did in
+his own repository. What does that mean for us? Importantly, it means that
+*we do not have to rewrite history to sign each commit*, because the history
+of our _next_ signed commit is guaranteed. The only downside is, of course,
+that the history itself could have already been exploited in a manner
+similar to our initial story, but an automated mass-signing of all past
+commits for a given author wouldn't catch such a thing anyway.
+
+That said, it is important to understand that the integrity of your
+repository guaranteed only if a [hash
+collision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_collision) cannot be
+created---that is, if an attacker were able to create the same SHA-1 hash
+with _different_ data, then the child commit(s) would still be valid and the
+repository would have been successfully compromised. [Vulnerabilities have
+been known in
+SHA-1](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/cryptanalysis_o.html)
+since 2005 that allow hashes to be computed [faster than brute
+force](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/sha1_broken.html),
+although they are not cheap to exploit. Given that, while your repository
+may be safe for now, there will come some point in the future where SHA-1
+will be considered as crippled as MD5 is today. At that point in time,
+however, maybe Git will offer a secure migration solution to [an algorithm
+like SHA-256](http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2006/8/27/211001) or
+better. Indeed, [SHA-1 hashes were never intended to make Git
+cryptographically
+secure](http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2006/8/27/211020).
+
+Given that, the average person is likely to be fine with leaving his/her history
+the way it is. We will operate under that assumption for our implementation,
+offering the ability to ignore all commits prior to a certain commit. If one
+wishes to validate all commits, the reference commit can simply be omitted.
+
+### Automating Signature Checks {#automate}
+
+The idea behind verifying that certain commits are trusted is fairly simple:
+
+> Given reference commit $r$ (optionally empty), let
+> $C$ be the set of all commits such that $C$ = `r..HEAD`
+> ([range spec](http://book.git-scm.com/4_git_treeishes.html)) and let
+> $K$ be the set of all public keys in a given GPG keyring. We must assert
+> that, for each commit $c$ in $C$, there must exist a key $k$ in
+> keyring $K$ such that $k$ is
+> [trusted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust) and can be used to
+> verify the signature of $c$. This assertion is denoted by the function
+> $g$ (GPG) in the following expression: $∀c∈C g(c)$.
+
+Fortunately, as we have already seen in previous sections with the
+`--show-signature` option to `git log`, Git handles the signature verification
+for us; this reduces our implementation to a simple shell script. However, the
+output we've been dealing with is not the most convenient to parse. It would be
+nice if we could get commit and signature information on a single line per
+commit. This can be accomplished with `--pretty`, but we have an additional
+problem---at the time of writing (in Git v1.7.10), the GPG `--pretty` options
+are undocumented.
+
+A quick look at [`format_commit_one()` in
+`pretty.c`](https://github.com/gitster/git/blob/f9d995d5dd39c942c06829e45f195eeaa99936e1/pretty.c#L1038)
+yields a `'G'` placeholder that has three different formats:
+
+- *`%GG`*---GPG output (what we see in `git log --show-signature`)
+- *`%G?`*---Outputs "G" for a good
+ signature and "B" for a bad signature; otherwise, an empty string ([see
+ mapping in `signature_check`
+ struct](https://github.com/gitster/git/blob/f9d995d5dd39c942c06829e45f195eeaa99936e1/pretty.c#L808))
+- *`%GS`*---The name of the signer
+
+We are interested in using the most concise and minimal representation ---
+`%G?`. Because this placeholder simply matches text on the GPG output, and the
+string `"gpg: Can't check signature: public key not found"` is not mapped in
+`signature_check`, unknown signatures will output an empty string, not "B".
+This is not explicit behavior, so I'm unsure if this will change in future
+releases. Fortunately, we are only interested in "G", so this detail will not
+matter for our implementation.
+
+With this in mind, we can come up with some useful one-line output per commit.
+The below is based on the output resulting from the demonstration of
+[merge option #3](#merge-3) above:
+
+```sh
+$ git log --pretty="format:%H %aN %s %G?"
+afb1e7373ae5e7dae3caab2c64cbb18db3d96fba Mike Gerwitz Modified bar G
+f227c90b116cc1d6770988a6ca359a8c92a83ce2 Mike Gerwitz Added bar G
+652f9aed906a646650c1e24914c94043ae99a407 John Doe Signed off G
+16ddd46b0c191b0e130d0d7d34c7fc7af03f2d3e John Doe Added feature X G
+cf43808e85399467885c444d2a37e609b7d9e99d Mike Gerwitz Test commit of foo G
+```
+
+Notice the "G" suffix for each of these lines, indicating that the signature
+is valid (which makes sense, since the signature is our own). Adding an
+additional commit, we can see what happens when a commit is unsigned:
+
+```sh
+$ echo foo >> foo
+$ git commit -am 'Yet another foo'
+$ git log --pretty="format:%H %aN %s %G?" HEAD^..
+f72924356896ab95a542c495b796555d016cbddd Mike Gerwitz Yet another foo
+```
+
+Note that, as aforementioned, the string replacement of `%G?` is empty when the
+commit is unsigned. However, what about commits that are signed but untrusted
+(not within our web of trust)?
+
+```
+$ gpg --edit-key 8EE30EAB
+[...]
+gpg> trust
+[...]
+Please decide how far you trust this user to correctly verify other users' keys
+(by looking at passports, checking fingerprints from different sources, etc.)
+
+ 1 = I don't know or won't say
+ 2 = I do NOT trust
+ 3 = I trust marginally
+ 4 = I trust fully
+ 5 = I trust ultimately
+ m = back to the main menu
+
+Your decision? 2
+[...]
+
+gpg> save
+Key not changed so no update needed.
+$ git log --pretty="format:%H %aN %s %G?" HEAD~2..
+f72924356896ab95a542c495b796555d016cbddd Mike Gerwitz Yet another foo
+afb1e7373ae5e7dae3caab2c64cbb18db3d96fba Mike Gerwitz Modified bar G
+```
+
+Uh oh. It seems that Git does not seem to check whether or not a signature is
+trusted. Let's take a look at the full GPG output:
+
+
+```sh
+$ git log --show-signature HEAD~2..HEAD^
+commit afb1e7373ae5e7dae3caab2c64cbb18db3d96fba
+gpg: Signature made Sun 22 Apr 2012 01:37:26 PM EDT using RSA key ID 8EE30EAB
+gpg: Good signature from "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
+gpg: There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
+Primary key fingerprint: 2217 5B02 E626 BC98 D7C0 C2E5 F22B B815 8EE3 0EAB
+Author: Mike Gerwitz
+Date: Sat Apr 21 17:35:27 2012 -0400
+
+ Modified bar
+```
+
+As you can see, GPG provides a clear warning. Unfortunately,
+[`parse_signature_lines()` in
+`pretty.c`](https://github.com/gitster/git/blob/f9d995d5dd39c942c06829e45f195eeaa99936e1/pretty.c#L808),
+which references a simple mapping in `struct signature_check`, will
+blissfully ignore the warning and match only `"Good signature from"`,
+yielding "G". A patch to provide a separate token for untrusted keys is
+simple, but for the time being, we will explore two separate
+implementations---one that will parse the simple one-line output that is
+ignorant of trust and a mention of a less elegant implementation that parses
+the GPG output. ^[Should the patch be accepted, this article will be
+updated to use the new token.]
+
+
+#### Signature Check Script, Disregarding Trust {#script-notrust}
+
+As mentioned above, due to limitations of the current `%G?` implementation, we
+cannot determine from the single-line output whether or not the given signature
+is actually trusted. This isn't necessarily a problem. Consider what will
+likely be a common use case for this script---to be run by a continuous
+integration (CI) system. In order to let the CI system know what signatures
+should be trusted, you will likely provide it with a set of keys for known
+committers, which eliminates the need for a web of trust (the act of placing the
+public key on the server indicates that you trust the key). Therefore, if the
+signature is recognized and is good, the commit can be trusted.
+
+One additional consideration is the need to ignore all ancestors of a given
+commit, which is necessary on older repositories where older commits will not be
+signed (see [Commit History In a Nutshell](#commit-history) for information on
+why it is unnecessary, and probably a bad idea, to sign old commits). As such,
+our script will accept a ref and will only consider its children in the check.
+
+This script *assumes that each commit will be signed* and will output the SHA-1
+hash of each unsigned/bad commit, in addition to some additional, useful
+information, delimited by tabs.
+
+```sh
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+# Licensed under the CC0 1.0 Universal license (public domain).
+#
+# Validate signatures on each and every commit within the given range
+##
+
+# if a ref is provided, append range spec to include all children
+chkafter="${1+$1..}"
+
+# note: bash users may instead use $'\t'; the echo statement below is a more
+# portable option
+t=$( echo '\t' )
+
+# Check every commit after chkafter (or all commits if chkafter was not
+# provided) for a trusted signature, listing invalid commits. %G? will output
+# "G" if the signature is trusted.
+git log --pretty="format:%H$t%aN$t%s$t%G?" "${chkafter:-HEAD}" \
+ | grep -v "${t}G$"
+
+# grep will exit with a non-zero status if no matches are found, which we
+# consider a success, so invert it
+[ $? -gt 0 ]
+```
+
+That's it; Git does most of the work for us! If a ref is provided, it will be
+converted into a [range spec](http://book.git-scm.com/4_git_treeishes.html) by
+appending `".."` (e.g. `a1b2c` becomes `a1b2c..`), which will cause `git log`
+to return all of its children (_not_ including the ref itself). If no ref is
+provided, we end up using `HEAD` without a range spec, which will simply list
+every commit (using an empty string will cause Git to throw an error, and we
+must quote the string in case the user decides to do something like `"master@{5
+days ago}"`). Using the `--pretty` option to `git log`, we output the GPG
+signature result with `%G?`, in addition to some useful information we will want
+to see about any commits that do not pass the test. We can then filter out all
+commits that have been signed with a known key by removing all lines that end in
+"G"---the output from `%G?` indicating a good signature.
+
+Let's see it in action (assuming the script has been saved as `signchk`):
+
+```sh
+$ chmod +x signchk
+$ ./signchk
+f72924356896ab95a542c495b796555d016cbddd Mike Gerwitz Yet another foo
+$ echo $?
+1
+```
+
+With no arguments, the script checks every commit in our repository, finding a
+single commit that has not been signed. At this point, we can either check the
+output itself or check the exit status of the script, which indicates a failure.
+If this script were run by a CI system, the best option would be to abort the
+build and immediately notify the maintainers of a potential security breach (or,
+more likely, someone simply forgot to sign their commit).
+
+If we check commits after that failure, assuming that each of the children have
+been signed, we will see the following:
+
+```sh
+$ ./signchk f7292
+$ echo $?
+0
+```
+
+Be careful when running this script directly from the repository, especially
+with CI systems---you must either place a copy of the script outside of the
+repository or run the script from a trusted point in history. For example, if
+your CI system were to simply pull from the repository and then run the script,
+an attacker need only modify the script to circumvent this check entirely.
+
+
+#### Signature Check Script With Web Of Trust {#script-trust}
+
+The web of trust would come in handy for large groups of contributors; in such a
+case, your CI system could attempt to download the public key from a
+preconfigured keyserver when the key is encountered (updating the key if
+necessary to get trust signatures). Based on the web of trust established from
+the public keys directly trusted by the CI system, you could then automatically
+determine whether or not a commit can be trusted even if the key was not
+explicitly placed on the server.
+
+To accomplish this task, we will split the script up into two distinct
+portions---retrieving/updating all keys within the given range, followed by the
+actual signature verification. Let's start with the key gathering portion,
+which is actually a trivial task:
+
+```sh
+$ git log --show-signature \
+ | grep 'key ID' \
+ | grep -o '[A-Z0-9]\+$' \
+ | sort \
+ | uniq \
+ | xargs gpg --keyserver key.server.org --recv-keys $keys
+```
+
+The above string of commands simply uses `grep` to pull the key ids out of `git
+log` output (using `--show-signature` to produce GPG output), and then requests
+only the unique keys from the given keyserver. In the case of the repository
+we've been using throughout this article, there is only a single signature---my
+own. In a larger repository, all unique keys will be listed. Note that the
+above example does not specify any range of commits; you are free to integrate
+it into the `signchk` script to use the same range, but it isn't strictly
+necessary (it may provide a slight performance benefit, depending on the number
+of commits that would have been ignored).
+
+Armed with our updated keys, we can now verify the commits based on our web
+of trust. Whether or not a specific key will be trusted is [dependent on
+your personal
+settings](http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual.html#AEN533). The idea here is
+that you can trust a set of users (e.g. Linus' "lieutenants") that in turn
+will trust other users which, depending on your configuration, may
+automatically be within your web of trust even if you do not personally
+trust them. This same concept can be applied to your CI server by placing
+its keyring in place of you own (or perhaps you will omit the CI server and
+run the script yourself).
+
+Unfortunately, with Git's current `%G?` implementation, [we are unable to
+check basic one-line output](#automate). Instead, we must parse the output
+of `--show-signature` ([as shown above](#gpg-sig-untrusted)) for each
+relevant commit. Combining our output with [the original script that
+disregards trust](#script-notrust), we can arrive at the following, which is
+the output that we must parse:
+
+```sh
+$ git log --pretty="format:%H$t%aN$t%s$t%G?" --show-signature
+f72924356896ab95a542c495b796555d016cbddd Mike Gerwitz Yet another foo
+gpg: Signature made Sun 22 Apr 2012 01:37:26 PM EDT using RSA key ID 8EE30EAB
+gpg: Good signature from "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
+gpg: There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
+Primary key fingerprint: 2217 5B02 E626 BC98 D7C0 C2E5 F22B B815 8EE3 0EAB
+afb1e7373ae5e7dae3caab2c64cbb18db3d96fba Mike Gerwitz Modified bar G
+[...]
+```
+
+In the above snippet, it should be noted that the first commit (`f7292`) is
+_not_ signed, whereas the second (`afb1e`) is. Therefore, the GPG output
+_preceeds_ the commit line itself. Let's consider our objective:
+
+. List all unsigned commits, or commits with unknown or invalid signatures.
+. List all signed commits that are signed with known signatures, but are
+ otherwise untrusted.
+
+Our [previous script](#script-notrust) performs #1 just fine, so we need only
+augment it to support #2. In essence---we wish to convert lines ending in
+"G" to something else if the GPG output _preceeding_ that line indicates that
+the signature is untrusted.
+
+There are many ways to go about doing this, but we will settle for a fairly
+clear set of commands that can be used to augment the previous script. To
+prevent the lines ending with "G" from being filtered from the output (should
+they be untrusted), we will suffix untrusted lines with "U". Consider the
+output of the following:
+
+```sh
+$ git log --pretty="format:^%H$t%aN$t%s$t%G?" --show-signature \
+> | grep '^\^\|gpg: .*not certified' \
+> | awk '
+> /^gpg:/ {
+> getline;
+> printf "%s U\n", $0;
+> next;
+> }
+> { print; }
+> ' \
+> | sed 's/^\^//'
+f72924356896ab95a542c495b796555d016cbddd Mike Gerwitz Yet another foo
+afb1e7373ae5e7dae3caab2c64cbb18db3d96fba Mike Gerwitz Modified bar G U
+f227c90b116cc1d6770988a6ca359a8c92a83ce2 Mike Gerwitz Added bar G U
+652f9aed906a646650c1e24914c94043ae99a407 John Doe Signed off G U
+16ddd46b0c191b0e130d0d7d34c7fc7af03f2d3e John Doe Added feature X G U
+cf43808e85399467885c444d2a37e609b7d9e99d Mike Gerwitz Test commit of foo G U
+```
+
+Here, we find that if we filter out those lines ending in "G" as we did
+before, we would be left with the untrusted commits in addition to the commits
+that are bad ("B") or unsigned (blank), as indicated by `%G?`. To accomplish
+this, we first add the GPG output to the log with the `--show-signature` option
+and, to make filtering easier, prefix all commit lines with a caret (^) which
+we will later strip. We then filter all lines but those beginning with a caret,
+or lines that contain the string "not certified", which is part of the GPG
+output. This results in lines of commits with a single `"gpg:"` line before
+them if they are untrusted. We can then pipe this to awk, which will remove all
+`"gpg:"`-prefixed lines and append `"U"` to the next line (the commit line).
+Finally, we strip off the leading caret that was added during the beginning of
+this process to produce the final output.
+
+Please keep in mind that there is a huge difference between the conventional use
+of trust with PGP/GPG ("I assert that I know this person is who they claim they
+are") vs trusting someone to commit to your repository. As such, it may be in
+your best interest to maintain an entirely separate web of trust for your CI
+server or whatever user is being used to perform the signature checks.
+
+
+### Automating Merge Signature Checks {#script-merge}
+
+The aforementioned scripts are excellent if you wish to check the validity of
+each individual commit, but not everyone will wish to put forth that amount of
+effort. Instead, maintainers may opt for a workflow that requires the signing
+of only the merge commit ([option #2 above](#merge-2)), rather than each
+commit that is introduced by the merge. Let us consider the appropach we would
+have to take for such an implementation:
+
+> Given reference commit $r$ (optionally empty), let
+> $C'$ be the set of all _first-parent_ commits such that $C'$ = `r..HEAD`
+> ([range spec](http://book.git-scm.com/4_git_treeishes.html)) and let
+> $K$ be the set of all public keys in a given GPG keyring. We must assert
+> that, for each commit $c$ in $C$, there must exist a key $k$ in
+> keyring $K$ such that $k$ is
+> [trusted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust) and can be used to
+> verify the signature of\ $c$. This assertion is denoted by the function
+> $g$ (GPG) in the following expression: $∀c∈C′ g(c)$.
+
+The only difference between this script and the script that checks for a
+signature on each individual commit is that *this script will only check for
+commits on a particular branch* (e.g. `master`). This is important---if we
+commit directly onto master, we want to ensure that the commit is signed (since
+there will be no merge). If we merge _into_ master, a merge commit will be
+created, which we may sign and ignore all commits introduced by the merge. If
+the merge is a fast-forward, a merge commit can be forcefully created with the
+`--no-ff` option to avoid the need to amend each commit with a signature.
+
+To demonstrate a script that can valdiate commits for this type of workflow,
+let's first create some changes that would result in a merge:
+
+```sh
+$ git checkout -b diverge
+$ echo foo > diverged
+$ git add diverged
+$ git commit -m 'Added content to diverged'
+[diverge cfe7389] Added content to diverged
+ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
+ create mode 100644 diverged
+$ echo foo2 >> diverged
+$ git commit -am 'Added additional content to diverged'
+[diverge 996cf32] Added additional content to diverged
+ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
+$ git checkout master
+Switched to branch 'master'
+$ echo foo >> foo
+$ git commit -S -am 'Added data to master'
+
+You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
+user: "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+4096-bit RSA key, ID 8EE30EAB, created 2011-06-16
+
+[master 3cbc6d2] Added data to master
+ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
+$ git merge -S diverge
+
+You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
+user: "Mike Gerwitz (Free Software Developer) "
+4096-bit RSA key, ID 8EE30EAB, created 2011-06-16
+
+Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.
+ diverged | 2 ++
+ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
+ create mode 100644 diverged
+```
+
+Above, committed in both `master` and a new `diverge` branch in order to ensure
+that the merge would not be a fast-forward (alternatively, we could have used
+the `--no-ff` option of `git merge`). This results in the following (your hashes
+will vary):
+
+```
+$ git log --oneline --graph
+* 9307dc5 Merge branch 'diverge'
+|\
+| * 996cf32 Added additional content to diverged
+| * cfe7389 Added content to diverged
+* | 3cbc6d2 Added data to master
+|/
+* f729243 Yet another foo
+* afb1e73 Modified bar
+* f227c90 Added bar
+* 652f9ae Signed off
+* 16ddd46 Added feature X
+* cf43808 Test commit of foo
+```
+
+From the above graph, we can see that we are interested in signatures on only
+two of the commits: `3cbc6d2`, which was created directly on `master`, and
+`9307dc5`---the merge commit. The other two commits (`996cf32` and `cfe7389`)
+need not be signed because the signing of the merge commit asserts their
+validity (assuming that the author of the merge was vigilant). But how do we
+ignore those commits?
+
+```
+$ git log --oneline --graph --first-parent
+* 9307dc5 Merge branch 'diverge'
+* 3cbc6d2 Added data to master
+* f729243 Yet another foo
+* afb1e73 Modified bar
+* f227c90 Added bar
+* 652f9ae Signed off
+* 16ddd46 Added feature X
+* cf43808 Test commit of foo
+```
+
+The above example simply added the `--first-parent` option to `git log`, which
+will display only the first parent commit when encountering a merge commit.
+Importantly, this means that we are left with _only the commits on_ `master` (or
+whatever branch you decide to reference). These are the commits we wish to
+validate.
+
+Performing the validation is therefore only a slight modification to the
+original script:
+
+```sh
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+# Validate signatures on only direct commits and merge commits for a particular
+# branch (current branch)
+##
+
+# if a ref is provided, append range spec to include all children
+chkafter="${1+$1..}"
+
+# note: bash users may instead use $'\t'; the echo statement below is a more
+# portable option (-e is unsupported with /bin/sh)
+t=$( echo '\t' )
+
+# Check every commit after chkafter (or all commits if chkafter was not
+# provided) for a trusted signature, listing invalid commits. %G? will output
+# "G" if the signature is trusted.
+git log --pretty="format:%H$t%aN$t%s$t%G?" "${chkafter:-HEAD}" --first-parent \
+ | grep -v "${t}G$"
+
+# grep will exit with a non-zero status if no matches are found, which we
+# consider a success, so invert it
+[ $? -gt 0 ]
+```
+
+If you run the above script using the branch setup provided above, then you will
+find that neither of the commits made in the `diverge` branch are listed in the
+output. Since the merge commit itself is signed, it is also omitted from the
+output (leaving us with only the unsigned commit mentioned in the previous
+sections). To demonstrate what will happen if the merge commit is _not_ signed,
+we can amend it as follows (omitting the `-S` option):
+
+```sh
+$ git commit --amend
+[master 9ee66e9] Merge branch 'diverge'
+$ ./signchk
+9ee66e900265d82f5389e403a894e8d06830e463 Mike Gerwitz Merge branch 'diverge'
+f72924356896ab95a542c495b796555d016cbddd Mike Gerwitz Yet another foo
+$ echo $?
+1
+```
+
+The merge commit is then listed, requiring a valid signature. ^[If you wish to
+ensure that this signature is trusted as well, see [the section on verifying
+commits within a web of trust](#script-trust).]
+
+
+## Summary
+
+* [Be careful of who you trust.](#trust) Is your repository safe from
+ harm/exploitation on your PC? What about the PCs of those whom you trust?
+** [Your host is not necessarily secure.](#trust-host) Be wary of using
+ remotely hosted repositories as your primary hub.
+* [Using GPG to sign your commits](#trust-ensure) can help to assert your
+ identity, helping to protect your reputation from impostors.
+* For large merges, you must develop a security practice that works best for
+ your particular project. Specifically, you may choose to [sign each
+ individual commit](#merge-3) introduced by the merge, [sign only the merge
+ commit](#merge-2), or [squash all commits](#merge-1) and sign the
+ resulting commit.
+* If you have an existing repository, there is [little need to go rewriting
+ history to mass-sign commits](#commit-history).
+* Once you have determined the security policy best for your project, you may
+ [automate signature verification](#automate) to ensure that no unauthorized
+ commits sneak into your repository.