How do I make Git ignore file mode (chmod) changes?

Asked 2023-09-20 20:24:11 View 144,132

I have a project in which I have to change the mode of files with chmod to 777 while developing, but which should not change in the main repo.

Git picks up on chmod -R 777 . and marks all files as changed. Is there a way to make Git ignore mode changes that have been made to files?

  • This is helpful when working with git on Windows + Bash on Ubuntu on Windows - anyone
  • For anyone who just wants to ignore permission changes for a specific invocation of git diff, and who therefore does not want to alter their Git configuration files: you can use git diff -G. per Zed's answer here. - anyone

Answers

Try:

git config core.fileMode false

From git-config(1):

core.fileMode
    Tells Git if the executable bit of files in the working tree
    is to be honored.

    Some filesystems lose the executable bit when a file that is
    marked as executable is checked out, or checks out a
    non-executable file with executable bit on. git-clone(1)
    or git-init(1) probe the filesystem to see if it handles the 
    executable bit correctly and this variable is automatically
    set as necessary.

    A repository, however, may be on a filesystem that handles
    the filemode correctly, and this variable is set to true when
    created, but later may be made accessible from another
    environment that loses the filemode (e.g. exporting ext4
    via CIFS mount, visiting a Cygwin created repository with Git
    for Windows or Eclipse). In such a case it may be necessary
    to set this variable to false. See git-update-index(1).

    The default is true (when core.filemode is not specified
    in the config file).

The -c flag can be used to set this option for one-off commands:

git -c core.fileMode=false diff

Typing the -c core.fileMode=false can be bothersome and so you can set this flag for all git repos or just for one git repo:

# this will set your the flag for your user for all git repos (modifies `$HOME/.gitconfig`)
# WARNING: this will be override by local config, fileMode value is automatically selected with latest version of git.
# This mean that if git detect your current filesystem is compatible it will set local core.fileMode to true when you clone or init a repository.
# Tool like cygwin emulation will be detected as compatible and so your local setting WILL BE SET to true no matter what you set in global setting.
git config --global core.fileMode false

# this will set the flag for one git repo (modifies `$current_git_repo/.git/config`)
git config core.fileMode false

Additionally, git clone and git init explicitly set core.fileMode to true in the repo config as discussed in Git global core.fileMode false overridden locally on clone

Warning

core.fileMode is not the best practice and should be used carefully. This setting only covers the executable bit of mode and never the read/write bits. In many cases you think you need this setting because you did something like chmod -R 777, making all your files executable. But in most projects most files don't need and should not be executable for security reasons.

The proper way to solve this kind of situation is to handle folder and file permission separately, with something like:

find . -type d -exec chmod a+rwx {} \; # Make folders traversable and read/write
find . -type f -exec chmod a+rw {} \;  # Make files read/write

If you do that, you'll never need to use core.fileMode, except in very rare environment.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • If you do git config --global core.filemode false you'll only need to do this once for all repos. - anyone
  • this didn't work for me until I've fixed the case it should be fileMode instead of filemode - anyone
  • @tishma: Git configuration section and variable names are case insensitive according to the documentation, see the CONFIGURATION FILE section, so if the above didn't work for you then it was for a different reason. - anyone
  • @donquixote: The git config command writes the setting to the correct config file (.git/config for just the current repository, or ~/.gitconfig if used with --global). - anyone
  • @zx1986: It doesn't matter. From git config: "The variable names are case-insensitive, ..." - anyone

undo mode change in working tree:

git diff --summary | grep --color 'mode change 100755 => 100644' | cut -d' ' -f7- | xargs -d'\n' chmod +x
git diff --summary | grep --color 'mode change 100644 => 100755' | cut -d' ' -f7- | xargs -d'\n' chmod -x

Or in mingw-git

git diff --summary | grep  'mode change 100755 => 100644' | cut -d' ' -f7- | xargs -e'\n' chmod +x
git diff --summary | grep  'mode change 100644 => 100755' | cut -d' ' -f7- | xargs -e'\n' chmod -x

Or in BSD/macOS

git diff --summary | grep --color 'mode change 100644 => 100755' | cut -d' ' -f7- | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0 chmod -x
git diff --summary | grep --color 'mode change 100755 => 100644' | cut -d' ' -f7- | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0 chmod -x

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • On OS X Lion, omit the -d'\n' part from xargs as this is an illegal argument (and not needed). - anyone
  • You can ignore any errors about "chmod: missing operand after `+x'" - anyone
  • is this up to date? I get 'chmod: too few arguments' in mingw - anyone
  • @Pascal @pimlottc The -d specifies the delimiter to be newline instead of any whitespace. BSD xargs doesn't have that option, but instead you can pipe the output through tr '\n' '\0' and then use the -0 arg to xargs to use NUL as the delimiter. - anyone
  • Cool, the tr thing worked! Here's the full command for OSX: git diff --summary | grep --color 'mode change 100644 => 100755' | cut -d' ' -f7-|tr '\n' '\0'|xargs -0 chmod -x - anyone

If you want to set this option for all of your repos, use the --global option.

git config --global core.filemode false

If this does not work you are probably using a newer version of git so try the --add option.

git config --add --global core.filemode false

If you run it without the --global option and your working directory is not a repo, you'll get

error: could not lock config file .git/config: No such file or directory

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • Looks like later GIT uses --add, as in git config --add --global core.filemode false - anyone
  • If the repo's local config already has filemode=true then changing the global config won't help as the local config will override the global config. Will have to change local config of each repo of the machine once - anyone
  • PLEASE: Update this answer with syedrakib's warning! Everything felt insane before I found it, and made perfect sense after. - anyone

If

git config --global core.filemode false

does not work for you, do it manually:

cd into yourLovelyProject folder

cd into .git folder:

cd .git

edit the config file:

nano config

change true to false

[core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = true

->

[core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = false

save, exit, go to upper folder:

cd ..

reinit the git

git init

you are done!

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • Instead of editing .git/config, a simple git config core.fileMode false in the root of your project is enough. If you edit the config file, you're better of removing the directive entirely, so that the global one is picked up. - anyone
  • -1 if git config --global doesn't work it means you don't have the permissions to do it at the system level, removing global option does exactly the same thing as manually editing .git/config - anyone
  • @CharlesB incorrect - the answered provided a workaround by putting the option directly in the project, making it project-specific. This will not work with other git projects that you make/checkout in the future, but does work for the project you're working on. (let's make sure we disambiguate ~/.gitconfig, and ~/project/.git/config) - anyone
  • Once this has run git init should we set filemode back to true? - anyone
  • git init returns filemode back to TRUE! - anyone

Adding to Greg Hewgill answer (of using core.fileMode config variable):

You can use --chmod=(-|+)x option of git update-index (low-level version of "git add") to change execute permissions in the index, from where it would be picked up if you use "git commit" (and not "git commit -a").

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • This should have been edited into Greg Hewgill's answer rather than added as a separate answer, thus creating one supreme answer with a single unambiguous representation. - anyone
  • @Greg: One needs to have enough points to edit not own answer; I think I didn't have enough for editing permissions at that time. - anyone
  • @Jakub I think you have enough reputation now :) What would this command look like for an example file? - anyone

You can configure it globally:

git config --global core.filemode false

If the above doesn't work for you, the reason might be your local configuration overrides the global configuration.

Remove your local configuration to make the global configuration take effect:

git config --unset core.filemode

Alternatively, you could change your local configuration to the right value:

git config core.filemode false

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • If the main answer doesn't help you - try this one. If you want to check your local config without modifying it, check git config -l (list current config - both local and global) - anyone
  • Removing local configuration is why global didn't work for me. Thanks! - anyone

If you have used chmod command already then check the difference of file, It shows previous file mode and current file mode such as:

new mode : 755

old mode : 644

set old mode of all files using below command

sudo chmod 644 .

now set core.fileMode to false in config file either using command or manually.

git config core.fileMode false

then apply chmod command to change the permissions of all files such as

sudo chmod 755 .

and again set core.fileMode to true.

git config core.fileMode true

For best practises don't Keep core.fileMode false always.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • Are you saying that an entire project (in development, staging, and production) should be 755? - anyone
  • @Daniel Feb: No. change the mode of necessary files only. - anyone
  • For best practises don't Keep core.fileMode false always what do you mean, you should explain that. - anyone
  • For best practises don't Keep core.fileMode false always. Some filesystems (FAT for example) don't support file permissions, so the OS will report a default value (766 on my system anyway). In this case, core.filemode is absolutely necessary in the local config, unless you want to bloat the commit history with unnecessary and unintentional permission changes - anyone
  • Also, why do you bother changing the perms back at all? If you set core.filemode=false then git will ignore execute bit changes, no need to change local permissions. Unless you've already added permission changes to the index, in which case you're missing the step where you would need to git add after you turn off core.filemode. - anyone

By definining the following alias (in ~/.gitconfig) you can easily temporarily disable the fileMode per git command:

[alias]
nfm = "!f(){ git -c core.fileMode=false $@; };f"

When this alias is prefixed to the git command, the file mode changes won't show up with commands that would otherwise show them. For example:

git nfm status

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • Why not just a pre-commit hook instead of a forgettable parameter? - anyone

If you want to set filemode to false in config files recursively (including submodules) : find -name config | xargs sed -i -e 's/filemode = true/filemode = false/'

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • This won't work if that line is not in the config file. If you want to change it for submodules, try this: git submodule foreach git config core.fileMode false - anyone

Simple solution:

Hit this Simple command in project Folder(it won't remove your original changes) ...it will only remove changes that had been done while you changed project folder permission

command is below:

git config core.fileMode false

Why this all unnecessary file get modified: because you have changed the project folder permissions with commend sudo chmod -R 777 ./yourProjectFolder

when will you check changes what not you did? you found like below while using git diff filename

old mode 100644
new mode 100755

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • This answer duplicates Greg Hewgill's answer from 10 years before. - anyone

This works for me:

find . -type f -exec chmod a-x {} \;

or reverse, depending on your operating system

find . -type f -exec chmod a+x {} \;

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

  • This would change the permissions of the file, but not make git ignore the file permissions of the file. - anyone
  • Well, you are right, that does not resolve git ignore thing. - anyone

This may work: git config core.fileMode false

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

if you set : sudo chmod 777 -R

you can run : git config core.fileMode false

you can sée : https://www.w3docs.com/snippets/git/how-to-make-git-ignore-file-mode-changes.html

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11

You don't need to change the config file.

Just run:

git diff -G.

Note that the trailing dot is not end of sentence, but regex expression that matches everything, and must be included.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:24:11