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

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 12, 2026, 22:45 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqy0kxlgy6.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <aY5Wid6eg1-LwZm8@fruit.crustytoothpaste.net>

"brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> We used to allow symlinks as well.  That was used instead of gitfiles
> for submodules at one point, I believe, and there may still be some
> people using that.  A brief test indicates that that functionality still
> works, so if we make a change here, we should be sure to accept symlinks
> as well.

In my review, I outlined a way to avoid this extra lstat(), and instead reuse the result of stat() used in read_gitfile_gently() already; the check in that function being stat() is exactly because we want to follow such a symbolic link.

> 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.

Thanks.