Re: 'safe.directory' setting ignored for some operations?

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 02:21:01PM +0100, Nikolaus Rath wrote:

> It seems to me that the 'safe.directory = *' option is ignored for
> some operations:
> 
> ---snip--
> $ git --version
> git version 2.43.0
> 
> $ git config --get-all --show-scope safe.directory
> command *

You're getting "command" here, but I don't see any "-c". Presumably
you're setting GIT_CONFIG_* in the environment yourself?

> $ git status -v --untracked=all --ignored
> HEAD detached at e116555
> [...]
> nothing to commit, working tree clean

You don't show us the repo here, but presumably this is one you don't
own, and the config is working as expected to allow the operation to
proceed.

> $ git clone -v --no-checkout --
> /builds/coreinfra/grafana_terraform/.git
> /builds/coreinfra/grafana_terraform/tmpus18hzbs
> Cloning into '/builds/coreinfra/grafana_terraform/tmpus18hzbs'...
> fatal: detected dubious ownership in repository at
> '/builds/coreinfra/grafana_terraform/.git'
> To add an exception for this directory, call:
> 
> git config --global --add safe.directory
> /builds/coreinfra/grafana_terraform/.git
> fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
> 
> Please make sure you have the correct access rights
> and the repository exists.

Here you are running afoul of the environment-clearing that happens when
Git internally "switches" to another repo. The "clone" command is run in
your newly-made repo (which is "safe"), but it would then run
"git-upload-pack" in the remote repo to act as the server side. We clear
out many Git-related environment variables when switching between
variables, including GIT_CONFIG_*.

  Side note: clearing out the config has been a subject of debate over
  the years, but one of the main reasons we do it is to be consistent
  with non-local transports, which do not pass environment variables at
  all. Which is good for some config, but can be annoying for others, as
  seen here.

So I think things are working as intended. You can get around it with
either of these:

  - set the config in your user ~/.gitconfig, which will be read by the
    child upload-pack command

  - tell clone to pass the config to upload-pack, like:

     git clone -u 'git -c safe.directory="*" upload-pack' ...

-Peff