Retaining File Permissions in Git

Introduction

Normally only mods 644 or 755 are stored by git. These scripts will automatically store and restore the file mods.

Hooks are created for commit and checkout. So after a pull a checkout command is required to restore the file mods.

Changes to the local Git repository

Add a file Pre-Commit File

Add this file .git/hooks/pre-commit into the local git repo.

#!/bin/bash
#
# A hook script called by "git commit" with no arguments. The hook should
# exit with non-zero status after issuing an appropriate message if it wants
# to stop the commit.

SELF_DIR=`git rev-parse --show-toplevel`
DATABASE=$SELF_DIR/.permissions

# Clear the permissions database file
> $DATABASE

echo -n "Backing-up file permissions..."

IFS_OLD=$IFS; IFS=$'\n'
for FILE in `git ls-files`
do
   # Save the permissions of all the files in the index
   echo $FILE";"`stat -c "%a;%U;%G" $FILE` >> $DATABASE
done
IFS=$IFS_OLD

# Add the permissions database file to the index
git add $DATABASE

echo "OK"

Add a file Post-Checkout File

Add this file .git/hooks/post-checkout into the local git repo.

#!/bin/bash

SELF_DIR=`git rev-parse --show-toplevel`
DATABASE=$SELF_DIR/.permissions

echo -n "Restoring file permissions..."

IFS_OLD=$IFS; IFS=$'\n'
while read -r LINE || [[ -n "$LINE" ]];
do
   FILE=`echo $LINE | cut -d ";" -f 1`
   PERMISSIONS=`echo $LINE | cut -d ";" -f 2`
   USER=`echo $LINE | cut -d ";" -f 3`
   GROUP=`echo $LINE | cut -d ";" -f 4`

   # Set the file permissions
   chmod $PERMISSIONS $FILE

   # Set the file owner and groups
   chown $USER:$GROUP $FILE

done < $DATABASE
IFS=$IFS_OLD

echo "OK"

exit 0