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

Question

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?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

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!

Answer 5

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").

Answer 6

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

Answer 7

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.

Answer 8

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

Answer 9

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/'

Answer 10

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

Answer 11

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 {} \;

Answer 12

This may work: git config core.fileMode false

Answer 13

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

Answer 14

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.