Re: git gc changes ownerships of files linux

From: Torsten Bögershausen <tboegi@web.de>
Date: Feb 11, 2024, 15:14 UTC
Message-ID: <20240211151455.GA27103@tb-raspi4>
In-Reply-To: <CABkRduQNdgdF8WhZadP5hyYvpEWgP_AE8=qzxNiRNA71bdJcYQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Feb 10, 2024 at 08:52:22PM +0100, K_V wrote:

Show 20 quoted lines

> Hi team git
>
> Running 'git -C /srv/mssioncontrol/.git gc' on linux from a user which
> has access to another users files will occasionally change the
> ownership of the file 'packed-refs'. I believe git actually overwrites
> the file with a new one at the end af the gc command. But details
> about this is not writen in the help text. Could it be a bug?
>
> Use case: I'm using ansible to cleanup .git directories across
> multible servers and this issue is starting to cause problems.
>
> My solution is to make a variable containing the user and group id
> before running gc command and then reapply it afterwards:
> current_owner_uid_gid=$(stat -c "%u:%g" /srv/mssioncontrol/.git)
> git -C /srv/mssioncontrol/.git gc
> chown -R $current_owner_uid_gid "/srv/mssioncontrol/.git"
>
> Details:
> Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
> git version 2.39.2

Thanks for reporting this - I think that you have a working workaround ?

However, Git has a feature called "shared repository". You need to define a (unix) group that is shared between your user(s) and the ansible user.

The basic trick is to do git config core.sharedRepository true

(And then change the ownership of all files/directories to the new group)

There is a docu here, please search for core.sharedRepository https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config

I wonder, which solution is easier to maintain ?

>
> Best:
> zinen
>