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

Solution 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`)
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.

Solution 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

Solution 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

Solution 4:

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!

Solution 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").