CPCMS: A Configuration Management System Based on Cryptographic Names

CPCMS, the Cryptographically Protected Configuration Management System is a new configuration management system that provides scalability, disconnected commits, and fine-grain access controls. It addresses the novel problems raised by modern open-source development practices, in which projects routinely span traditional organizational boundaries and can involve thousands of participants. CPCMS provides for simultaneous public and private lines of development, with post hoc “publication” of private branches. This paper describes the repository architecture of CPCMS, and in particular its use (and abuse) of cryptographic naming mechanisms to achieve collision-free disconnected operation.