Re: [RFC] setup: fail if .git is not a file or directory

From: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date: Feb 12, 2026, 23:03 UTC
Message-ID: <aY5cNkxjzOOCGOow@fruit.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqy0kxlgy6.fsf@gitster.g>

On 2026-02-12 at 22:45:05, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> "brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> writes:
> 
> > In general, we should allow people to use symlinks wherever they can use
> > a file or directory unless we can definitively prove that there's a
> > clear security or functionality problem that cannot be avoided.  Git was
> > originally written for Unix, after all.
> 
> Is this also an obvlique reference to a separate potential security
> issue, I wonder.  It reminds me that I need to see if I have to ping
> the thread again.

It was intended to be a reference to the situation we had with, I believe, `.gitmodules` or `.gitignore` or another file of that sort, where symlinks were very much broken in that context. I merely mentioned security issues for completeness.

I believe it was bb6832d552 ("fsck: warn about symlinked dotfiles we'll open with O_NOFOLLOW", 2021-05-03) that introduced that change and was what I was thinking of.

-- 
brian m. carlson (they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA