Git Ignore File Permission

Using Ubuntu for web development is a perfect match. Since i migrate to Ubuntu a month ago, i could code faster and deliver more result. Instead of great environment, i also found an issue with Git and File Permission. By default Git detect file permission, and if i change a file or directory permission then Git will track it and consider it as new changes. In Windows environment, i never found this issue.

And since i’m also using suPHP libraries on my LAMP stack, i must use 755 file permission. After i clone a repository, I always find SoftException error because my files are writeable by the user group which is suPHP doesn’t allow. Therefore i need to change all the files and directory permissions to 755. After change the permission, Git found all the files changes and i need to add and commit them all. This is not good.

After stumble a while on Stackoverflow, i found the answer here. We can change the git config to not track the file permission. All you need is run this command:

git config core.fileMode false

And you can make it as global config with the command below:

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

And see the documentation here:

core.fileMode
 If false, the executable bit differences between the index and the
 working copy are ignored; useful on broken filesystems like FAT.
 See git-update-index(1). True by default.

So after i change the code.fileMode to false, git no longer track for file permission change.

So if you have any feedback please leave your message below and i would love to discuss more and sharing knowledge together.