threads / discuss / 50707

`git add <<windows 8.3 path to file inside repo>>` results in "fatal: ... is outside repository"

Subject: `git add <<windows 8.3 path to file inside repo>>` results in "fatal: ... is outside repository"

## tl;dr

8 messages between Mar 10, 2019 and Mar 12, 2019.

replies: 7people: 5as markdown or json

Anthony Sottile· Mar 10, 2019, 22:41 UTC · lore

(In case 8.3 filename isn't a familiar term): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.3_filename

This is distilled down from an actual issue to a minimal testcase.

The original failure involves an automated test while running on azure pipelines: https://asottile.visualstudio.com/asottile/_build/results?buildId=254

I'm using git on windows
>git --version
git version 2.21.0.windows.1
Here's a minimal case:

git init longname-repo cd longname-repo touch f git add ..\longna~1\f

Here's the output:

C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Temp\t\pre-commit-hooks>git init longname-repo Initialized empty Git repository in C:/Users/Anthony/AppData/Local/Temp/t/pre-commit-hooks/longname-repo/.git/

C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Temp\t\pre-commit-hooks>cd longname-repo
C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Temp\t\pre-commit-hooks\longname-repo>touch f

C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Temp\t\pre-commit-hooks\longname-repo>git add ..\longna~1\f fatal: ..\longna~1\f: '..\longna~1\f' is outside repository

It is however inside the repository:

C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Temp\t\pre-commit-hooks\longname-repo>python Python 3.7.1 (v3.7.1:260ec2c36a, Oct 20 2018, 14:57:15) [MSC v.1915 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

>>> import os
>>> os.path.samefile('f', r'..\longna~1\f')
True
Anthony
Johannes Sixt· Mar 11, 2019, 17:48 UTC · re: Anthony Sottile · lore

Re: `git add <<windows 8.3 path to file inside repo>>` results in "fatal: ... is outside repository"

Am 10.03.19 um 23:41 schrieb Anthony Sottile:
Show 5 quoted lines
> git init longname-repo
> cd longname-repo
> touch f
> git add ..\longna~1\f
> 
...
> 
> C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Temp\t\pre-commit-hooks\longname-repo>git
> add ..\longna~1\f
> fatal: ..\longna~1\f: '..\longna~1\f' is outside repository

This has nothing to do with long vs. short path names. It would report the same error when you say

  git add ..\longname-repo\f
-- Hannes
Anthony Sottile· Mar 11, 2019, 17:53 UTC · re: Johannes Sixt · lore

Re: `git add <<windows 8.3 path to file inside repo>>` results in "fatal: ... is outside repository"

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 10:48 AM Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org> wrote:
Show 19 quoted lines
>
> Am 10.03.19 um 23:41 schrieb Anthony Sottile:
> > git init longname-repo
> > cd longname-repo
> > touch f
> > git add ..\longna~1\f
> >
> ...
> >
> > C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Temp\t\pre-commit-hooks\longname-repo>git
> > add ..\longna~1\f
> > fatal: ..\longna~1\f: '..\longna~1\f' is outside repository
>
> This has nothing to do with long vs. short path names. It would report
> the same error when you say
>
>   git add ..\longname-repo\f
>
> -- Hannes
Oops, I misreported while trying to minimize my reproduction
Here's an accurate bug report
git properly handles this:
    git add C:\full\path\to\longname-repo\file
When the root of the repo root is `C:\full\path\to\longname-repo`
But it does not handle the equivalent 8.3 path:
    git add C:\full\path\to\longna~1\file
Torsten Bögershausen· Mar 11, 2019, 17:55 UTC · re: Johannes Sixt · lore

Re: `git add <<windows 8.3 path to file inside repo>>` results in "fatal: ... is outside repository"

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 06:48:11PM +0100, Johannes Sixt wrote:
Show 18 quoted lines
> Am 10.03.19 um 23:41 schrieb Anthony Sottile:
> > git init longname-repo
> > cd longname-repo
> > touch f
> > git add ..\longna~1\f
> >
> ...
> >
> > C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Temp\t\pre-commit-hooks\longname-repo>git
> > add ..\longna~1\f
> > fatal: ..\longna~1\f: '..\longna~1\f' is outside repository
>
> This has nothing to do with long vs. short path names. It would report
> the same error when you say
>
>   git add ..\longname-repo\f
>
> -- Hannes
You can probably do another test:
 mkdir longname-rexxx
 git init longname-repo
 cd longname-repo
 touch f
 git add ..\longna~1\f

And now nobody knows for shure if "longna~1" is longname-rexxx or longname-repo

It may happen that it is longname-rep at this point in time, at your machine. It may happen that it is a complete different directory on another machine, or even on your machine. For that reason, to avoid that someone tampers data outside a repo, "../" (or ..\ under windows) is not accepted by Git.

Anthony Sottile· Mar 11, 2019, 18:16 UTC · re: Torsten Bögershausen · lore

Re: `git add <<windows 8.3 path to file inside repo>>` results in "fatal: ... is outside repository"

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 10:55 AM Torsten Bögershausen <tboegi@web.de> wrote:
Show 38 quoted lines
>
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 06:48:11PM +0100, Johannes Sixt wrote:
> > Am 10.03.19 um 23:41 schrieb Anthony Sottile:
> > > git init longname-repo
> > > cd longname-repo
> > > touch f
> > > git add ..\longna~1\f
> > >
> > ...
> > >
> > > C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Temp\t\pre-commit-hooks\longname-repo>git
> > > add ..\longna~1\f
> > > fatal: ..\longna~1\f: '..\longna~1\f' is outside repository
> >
> > This has nothing to do with long vs. short path names. It would report
> > the same error when you say
> >
> >   git add ..\longname-repo\f
> >
> > -- Hannes
>
> You can probably do another test:
>
>  mkdir longname-rexxx
>  git init longname-repo
>  cd longname-repo
>  touch f
>  git add ..\longna~1\f
>
> And now nobody knows for shure if "longna~1"
> is longname-rexxx or longname-repo
>
> It may happen that it is longname-rep at this point in time,
> at your machine.
> It may happen that it is a complete different directory on another machine,
> or even on your machine.
> For that reason, to avoid that someone tampers data outside a repo,
> "../" (or ..\ under windows) is not accepted by Git.

the same can be said for `git add /full/path/to/repo/file` as any of those components could be symlinks.

However that is currently allowed

Note also I've updated my report, it isn't about relative paths any more but about full paths with 8.3 paths

Note that 8.3 filanames do canonically disambiguate themselves, the number after the tilde is used to refer to filenames alphabetically

This report is very similar to the change that happened to disambiguate drive letters in https://github.com/git/git/commit/d8727b3687c1d249e84be71a581cc1fb0581336a

Show 13 quoted lines
> Oops, I misreported while trying to minimize my reproduction
>
> Here's an accurate bug report
>
> git properly handles this:
>
>     git add C:\full\path\to\longname-repo\file
>
> When the root of the repo root is `C:\full\path\to\longname-repo`
>
> But it does not handle the equivalent 8.3 path:
>
>     git add C:\full\path\to\longna~1\file
Jack Adrian Zappa· Mar 11, 2019, 19:34 UTC · re: Anthony Sottile · lore

Re: `git add <<windows 8.3 path to file inside repo>>` results in "fatal: ... is outside repository"

Hey Anthony,

Are you sure that you have 8.3 active on the partition you are using? IIRC, It is not on by default anymore. To see, go to a cmd line and type "dir /x". If there are any files that exceed the 8.3 format, it will show those files with two names, the 8.3 name and the long name.

If it is off and you want to turn it on, see https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/121007/how-to-disable-8-3-file-name-creation-on-ntfs-partitions. and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-R2-and-2012/ff621566(v=ws.11) for more information.

A
On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 2:18 PM Anthony Sottile <asottile@umich.edu> wrote:
Show 70 quoted lines
>
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 10:55 AM Torsten Bögershausen <tboegi@web.de> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 06:48:11PM +0100, Johannes Sixt wrote:
> > > Am 10.03.19 um 23:41 schrieb Anthony Sottile:
> > > > git init longname-repo
> > > > cd longname-repo
> > > > touch f
> > > > git add ..\longna~1\f
> > > >
> > > ...
> > > >
> > > > C:\Users\Anthony\AppData\Local\Temp\t\pre-commit-hooks\longname-repo>git
> > > > add ..\longna~1\f
> > > > fatal: ..\longna~1\f: '..\longna~1\f' is outside repository
> > >
> > > This has nothing to do with long vs. short path names. It would report
> > > the same error when you say
> > >
> > >   git add ..\longname-repo\f
> > >
> > > -- Hannes
> >
> > You can probably do another test:
> >
> >  mkdir longname-rexxx
> >  git init longname-repo
> >  cd longname-repo
> >  touch f
> >  git add ..\longna~1\f
> >
> > And now nobody knows for shure if "longna~1"
> > is longname-rexxx or longname-repo
> >
> > It may happen that it is longname-rep at this point in time,
> > at your machine.
> > It may happen that it is a complete different directory on another machine,
> > or even on your machine.
> > For that reason, to avoid that someone tampers data outside a repo,
> > "../" (or ..\ under windows) is not accepted by Git.
>
> the same can be said for `git add /full/path/to/repo/file` as any of
> those components could be symlinks.
>
> However that is currently allowed
>
> Note also I've updated my report, it isn't about relative paths any
> more but about full paths with 8.3 paths
>
> Note that 8.3 filanames do canonically disambiguate themselves, the
> number after the tilde is used to refer to filenames alphabetically
>
> This report is very similar to the change that happened to
> disambiguate drive letters in
> https://github.com/git/git/commit/d8727b3687c1d249e84be71a581cc1fb0581336a
>
>
> > Oops, I misreported while trying to minimize my reproduction
> >
> > Here's an accurate bug report
> >
> > git properly handles this:
> >
> >     git add C:\full\path\to\longname-repo\file
> >
> > When the root of the repo root is `C:\full\path\to\longname-repo`
> >
> > But it does not handle the equivalent 8.3 path:
> >
> >     git add C:\full\path\to\longna~1\file
Anthony Sottile· Mar 11, 2019, 20:13 UTC · re: Jack Adrian Zappa · lore

Re: `git add <<windows 8.3 path to file inside repo>>` results in "fatal: ... is outside repository"

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 12:34 PM Jack Adrian Zappa <adrianh.bsc@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines
>
> Hey Anthony,
>
> Are you sure that you have 8.3 active on the partition you are using?
> IIRC, It is not on by default anymore.  To see, go to a cmd line and
> type "dir /x".  If there are any files that exceed the 8.3 format, it
> will show those files with two names, the 8.3 name and the long name.
>
> If it is off and you want to turn it on, see
> https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/121007/how-to-disable-8-3-file-name-creation-on-ntfs-partitions.
> and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-R2-and-2012/ff621566(v=ws.11)
> for more information.
>
>
> A
>
Yes, it appears they are enabled -- see below

C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Local\Temp\t\longname-repo>git add C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Local\Temp\t\longna~1\f fatal: C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Local\Temp\t\longna~1\f: 'C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Local\Temp\t\longna~1\f' is outside repository

C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Local\Temp\t\longname-repo>git add C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Local\Temp\t\longname-repo\f

C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Local\Temp\t\longname-repo>dir /x ..
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 3A97-874F
 Directory of C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Local\Temp\t
03/11/2019  01:11 PM    <DIR>                       .
03/11/2019  01:11 PM    <DIR>                       ..
03/11/2019  01:11 PM    <DIR>          LONGNA~1     longname-repo
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               3 Dir(s)  20,063,666,176 bytes free
Johannes Schindelin· Mar 12, 2019, 22:49 UTC · re: Jack Adrian Zappa · lore

Re: `git add <<windows 8.3 path to file inside repo>>` results in "fatal: ... is outside repository"

Hi Jack,
On Mon, 11 Mar 2019, Jack Adrian Zappa wrote:
> Are you sure that you have 8.3 active on the partition you are using?
> IIRC, It is not on by default anymore.

It is still on by default on system drives (usually C:), but it is switched off on other drives by default.

Yet another reason not to use 8.3 format (unless this is your file's canonical name format to begin with).

Ciao, Johannes

← back to recent threads