Re: Git destroys u+s and g+s directory modes

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Jan 2, 2026, 07:55 UTC
Message-ID: <20260102075528.GE2581074@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <eb36360d-f539-4f77-b175-57330ef05eac@danisch.de>

On Sat, Dec 27, 2025 at 03:37:51AM +0100, Hadmut Danisch wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> I do have a problem with git 2.43.0 (ubuntu server 24.04.3) and directory
> modes:
> 
> 
> I do need my git repo (owned by me) to be readable by a system user (running
> a rootless podman container).
> 
> I therefore set a special group for the directory, and set the sgid bit of
> the directory ( chgrp ... and chmod 2770 ), but when doing a git clone onto
> that directory, git rewrites all file modes, including the one of the root
> directory, and the  S_ISGID is lost.

Can you show more exactly what commands you're running? From your description, it sounds like this:

  mkdir clone

  # just a convenient group that I happen to be in but which is not the
  # default
  chgrp audio clone
  chmod 2770 clone

  ls -ld clone
  git clone $SOME_URL clone
  ls -ld clone clone/* clone/*/* clone/.git

Before the clone, I have:

  drwxrws--- 2 peff audio 4096 Jan  2 02:53 clone

and after:

  drwxrws--- 4 peff audio 4096 Jan  2 02:53 clone
  drwxrwsr-x 8 peff audio 4096 Jan  2 02:53 clone/.git
  drwxrwsr-x 2 peff audio 4096 Jan  2 02:53 clone/sub
  -rw-rw-r-- 1 peff audio    8 Jan  2 02:53 clone/sub/file

So the sgid bits were preserved and propagated to subdirectories, and everything was added to the correct group. Do you get different results? Or does my recipe not match what you're trying to do?

-Peff