Git command returns fatal error: "detected dubious ownership"
Platform Notice: Cloud Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the cloud platform.
Summary
When trying to execute a git command in a repository, such as a clone or push, git returns a fatal error saying the repository has dubious ownership and the git command is aborted.
Diagnosis
After running a Git command, you may encounter one of the following errors:
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fatal: detected dubious ownership in repository at '<path to the repository>'
To add an exception for this directory, call:
git config --global --add safe.directory <path to the repository>or
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fatal: unsafe repository ('<path to the repository>' is owned by someone else)
To add an exception for this directory, call:
git config --global --add safe.directory <path to the repository>These errors prevent Git from executing commands in repositories that it deems unsafe.
Cause
A change was introduced in git 2.35.2 (and newer) to prevent a user from executing git commands in a repository owned by a different user. This is to address a security risk, CVE-2022-24765, for more details see setup_git_directory and Git security vulnerability announced. The change to setup_git_directory prevents git invocations from executing commands on a repository owned by another user.
Solution
On a single-user system
Change the owner of the repository folder to the user who is running the git command.
For Windows: One way to do this is with the takeown command:
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takeown /f <path to the repository> /r /d yFor Linux: Using the chown command :
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chown -R username:group <path to the repository>Single repository on a multi-user system:
The default solution to workaround this issue would be to add the directory in question to git's safe.directory list, as the following command :
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git config --global --add safe.directory <path to repository>This is usually the command suggested by git in the error message to add this directory to the exception list.
Multiple repositories, system global settings:
Add the folder to the safe.directory list at the system level
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git config --system --add safe.directory <path to the repository>If using git > 2.36, there's also a wildcard to add all folders to safe.directory list :
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git config --global --add safe.directory '*' # For the current user and all repositories
git config --system --add safe.directory '*' # For all users and all repositoriesBefore adding paths/repositories to the exception list, please make sure to understand the security implications of CVE-2022-24765 and setup_git_directory. To avoid this, it's strongly recommended for each user have their own clone of the repository.
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