Re: Can Git repos be hacked or otherwise manipulated?

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Jan 15, 2020, 18:01 UTC
Message-ID: <20200115180140.GA4081287@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <bvMqhQOr4uENl8j2zcFOY0ogJmUqTRofCGyPlPc_xaXQXSP5ds9lgdglXkjTZng9U5WSpo-Uc2_SzCTdpAvLTeruT-tW3GTDkWj9dfLznuM=@protonmail.com>

On Wed, Jan 15, 2020 at 03:18:34AM +0000, 1234dev wrote:

> To work around this problem, should we instead host this repo on a
> public service? If so which one would you recommend?

Oops, I forgot to mention the actual solution. :)

Generally it is safe to clone _from_ an untrusted repo, even if it's on a local filesystem. So untarring the repo and running:

  git clone evil.git safe
  cd safe
  git log

should make it OK to run Git commands inside the "safe" directory.

Jonathan Nieder also mentioned using a bundle file, which may be even simpler, as it skips the part where you have to deal with tar. :)

Run:

  git bundle create foo.bundle --all

on the sending side, and then you can just:

  git clone foo.bundle safe

on the receiving side.

-Peff