1CONFIGURATION FILE 2------------------ 3 4The git configuration file contains a number of variables that affect 5the git command's behavior. `.git/config` file for each repository 6is used to store the information for that repository, and 7`$HOME/.gitconfig` is used to store per user information to give 8fallback values for `.git/config` file. The file `/etc/gitconfig` 9can be used to store system-wide defaults. 10 11They can be used by both the git plumbing 12and the porcelains. The variables are divided into sections, where 13in the fully qualified variable name the variable itself is the last 14dot-separated segment and the section name is everything before the last 15dot. The variable names are case-insensitive and only alphanumeric 16characters are allowed. Some variables may appear multiple times. 17 18Syntax 19~~~~~~ 20 21The syntax is fairly flexible and permissive; whitespaces are mostly 22ignored. The '#' and ';' characters begin comments to the end of line, 23blank lines are ignored. 24 25The file consists of sections and variables. A section begins with 26the name of the section in square brackets and continues until the next 27section begins. Section names are not case sensitive. Only alphanumeric 28characters, '`-`' and '`.`' are allowed in section names. Each variable 29must belong to some section, which means that there must be section 30header before first setting of a variable. 31 32Sections can be further divided into subsections. To begin a subsection 33put its name in double quotes, separated by space from the section name, 34in the section header, like in example below: 35 36-------- 37 [section "subsection"] 38 39-------- 40 41Subsection names can contain any characters except newline (doublequote 42'`"`' and backslash have to be escaped as '`\"`' and '`\\`', 43respectively) and are case sensitive. Section header cannot span multiple 44lines. Variables may belong directly to a section or to a given subsection. 45You can have `[section]` if you have `[section "subsection"]`, but you 46don't need to. 47 48There is also (case insensitive) alternative `[section.subsection]` syntax. 49In this syntax subsection names follow the same restrictions as for section 50name. 51 52All the other lines are recognized as setting variables, in the form 53'name = value'. If there is no equal sign on the line, the entire line 54is taken as 'name' and the variable is recognized as boolean "true". 55The variable names are case-insensitive and only alphanumeric 56characters and '`-`' are allowed. There can be more than one value 57for a given variable; we say then that variable is multivalued. 58 59Leading and trailing whitespace in a variable value is discarded. 60Internal whitespace within a variable value is retained verbatim. 61 62The values following the equals sign in variable assign are all either 63a string, an integer, or a boolean. Boolean values may be given as yes/no, 640/1 or true/false. Case is not significant in boolean values, when 65converting value to the canonical form using '--bool' type specifier; 66`git-config` will ensure that the output is "true" or "false". 67 68String values may be entirely or partially enclosed in double quotes. 69You need to enclose variable value in double quotes if you want to 70preserve leading or trailing whitespace, or if variable value contains 71beginning of comment characters (if it contains '#' or ';'). 72Double quote '`"`' and backslash '`\`' characters in variable value must 73be escaped: use '`\"`' for '`"`' and '`\\`' for '`\`'. 74 75The following escape sequences (beside '`\"`' and '`\\`') are recognized: 76'`\n`' for newline character (NL), '`\t`' for horizontal tabulation (HT, TAB) 77and '`\b`' for backspace (BS). No other char escape sequence, nor octal 78char sequences are valid. 79 80Variable value ending in a '`\`' is continued on the next line in the 81customary UNIX fashion. 82 83Some variables may require special value format. 84 85Example 86~~~~~~~ 87 88 # Core variables 89 [core] 90 ; Don't trust file modes 91 filemode = false 92 93 # Our diff algorithm 94 [diff] 95 external = "/usr/local/bin/gnu-diff -u" 96 renames = true 97 98 [branch "devel"] 99 remote = origin 100 merge = refs/heads/devel 101 102 # Proxy settings 103 [core] 104 gitProxy="ssh" for "ssh://kernel.org/" 105 gitProxy=default-proxy ; for the rest 106 107Variables 108~~~~~~~~~ 109 110Note that this list is non-comprehensive and not necessarily complete. 111For command-specific variables, you will find a more detailed description 112in the appropriate manual page. You will find a description of non-core 113porcelain configuration variables in the respective porcelain documentation. 114 115core.fileMode:: 116 If false, the executable bit differences between the index and 117 the working copy are ignored; useful on broken filesystems like FAT. 118 See gitlink:git-update-index[1]. True by default. 119 120core.symlinks:: 121 If false, symbolic links are checked out as small plain files that 122 contain the link text. gitlink:git-update-index[1] and 123 gitlink:git-add[1] will not change the recorded type to regular 124 file. Useful on filesystems like FAT that do not support 125 symbolic links. True by default. 126 127core.gitProxy:: 128 A "proxy command" to execute (as 'command host port') instead 129 of establishing direct connection to the remote server when 130 using the git protocol for fetching. If the variable value is 131 in the "COMMAND for DOMAIN" format, the command is applied only 132 on hostnames ending with the specified domain string. This variable 133 may be set multiple times and is matched in the given order; 134 the first match wins. 135+ 136Can be overridden by the 'GIT_PROXY_COMMAND' environment variable 137(which always applies universally, without the special "for" 138handling). 139 140core.ignoreStat:: 141 The working copy files are assumed to stay unchanged until you 142 mark them otherwise manually - Git will not detect the file changes 143 by lstat() calls. This is useful on systems where those are very 144 slow, such as Microsoft Windows. See gitlink:git-update-index[1]. 145 False by default. 146 147core.preferSymlinkRefs:: 148 Instead of the default "symref" format for HEAD 149 and other symbolic reference files, use symbolic links. 150 This is sometimes needed to work with old scripts that 151 expect HEAD to be a symbolic link. 152 153core.bare:: 154 If true this repository is assumed to be 'bare' and has no 155 working directory associated with it. If this is the case a 156 number of commands that require a working directory will be 157 disabled, such as gitlink:git-add[1] or gitlink:git-merge[1]. 158+ 159This setting is automatically guessed by gitlink:git-clone[1] or 160gitlink:git-init[1] when the repository was created. By default a 161repository that ends in "/.git" is assumed to be not bare (bare = 162false), while all other repositories are assumed to be bare (bare 163= true). 164 165core.logAllRefUpdates:: 166 Updates to a ref <ref> is logged to the file 167 "$GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>", by appending the new and old 168 SHA1, the date/time and the reason of the update, but 169 only when the file exists. If this configuration 170 variable is set to true, missing "$GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>" 171 file is automatically created for branch heads. 172+ 173This information can be used to determine what commit 174was the tip of a branch "2 days ago". 175+ 176This value is true by default in a repository that has 177a working directory associated with it, and false by 178default in a bare repository. 179 180core.repositoryFormatVersion:: 181 Internal variable identifying the repository format and layout 182 version. 183 184core.sharedRepository:: 185 When 'group' (or 'true'), the repository is made shareable between 186 several users in a group (making sure all the files and objects are 187 group-writable). When 'all' (or 'world' or 'everybody'), the 188 repository will be readable by all users, additionally to being 189 group-shareable. When 'umask' (or 'false'), git will use permissions 190 reported by umask(2). See gitlink:git-init[1]. False by default. 191 192core.warnAmbiguousRefs:: 193 If true, git will warn you if the ref name you passed it is ambiguous 194 and might match multiple refs in the .git/refs/ tree. True by default. 195 196core.compression:: 197 An integer -1..9, indicating the compression level for objects that 198 are not in a pack file. -1 is the zlib and git default. 0 means no 199 compression, and 1..9 are various speed/size tradeoffs, 9 being 200 slowest. 201 202core.legacyheaders:: 203 A boolean which 204 changes the format of loose objects so that they are more 205 efficient to pack and to send out of the repository over git 206 native protocol, since v1.4.2. However, loose objects 207 written in the new format cannot be read by git older than 208 that version; people fetching from your repository using 209 older versions of git over dumb transports (e.g. http) 210 will also be affected. 211+ 212To let git use the new loose object format, you have to 213set core.legacyheaders to false. 214 215core.packedGitWindowSize:: 216 Number of bytes of a pack file to map into memory in a 217 single mapping operation. Larger window sizes may allow 218 your system to process a smaller number of large pack files 219 more quickly. Smaller window sizes will negatively affect 220 performance due to increased calls to the operating system's 221 memory manager, but may improve performance when accessing 222 a large number of large pack files. 223+ 224Default is 1 MiB if NO_MMAP was set at compile time, otherwise 32 225MiB on 32 bit platforms and 1 GiB on 64 bit platforms. This should 226be reasonable for all users/operating systems. You probably do 227not need to adjust this value. 228+ 229Common unit suffixes of 'k', 'm', or 'g' are supported. 230 231core.packedGitLimit:: 232 Maximum number of bytes to map simultaneously into memory 233 from pack files. If Git needs to access more than this many 234 bytes at once to complete an operation it will unmap existing 235 regions to reclaim virtual address space within the process. 236+ 237Default is 256 MiB on 32 bit platforms and 8 GiB on 64 bit platforms. 238This should be reasonable for all users/operating systems, except on 239the largest projects. You probably do not need to adjust this value. 240+ 241Common unit suffixes of 'k', 'm', or 'g' are supported. 242 243alias.*:: 244 Command aliases for the gitlink:git[1] command wrapper - e.g. 245 after defining "alias.last = cat-file commit HEAD", the invocation 246 "git last" is equivalent to "git cat-file commit HEAD". To avoid 247 confusion and troubles with script usage, aliases that 248 hide existing git commands are ignored. Arguments are split by 249 spaces, the usual shell quoting and escaping is supported. 250 quote pair and a backslash can be used to quote them. 251 252 If the alias expansion is prefixed with an exclamation point, 253 it will be treated as a shell command. For example, defining 254 "alias.new = !gitk --all --not ORIG_HEAD", the invocation 255 "git new" is equivalent to running the shell command 256 "gitk --all --not ORIG_HEAD". 257 258apply.whitespace:: 259 Tells `git-apply` how to handle whitespaces, in the same way 260 as the '--whitespace' option. See gitlink:git-apply[1]. 261 262branch.<name>.remote:: 263 When in branch <name>, it tells `git fetch` which remote to fetch. 264 If this option is not given, `git fetch` defaults to remote "origin". 265 266branch.<name>.merge:: 267 When in branch <name>, it tells `git fetch` the default refspec to 268 be marked for merging in FETCH_HEAD. The value has exactly to match 269 a remote part of one of the refspecs which are fetched from the remote 270 given by "branch.<name>.remote". 271 The merge information is used by `git pull` (which at first calls 272 `git fetch`) to lookup the default branch for merging. Without 273 this option, `git pull` defaults to merge the first refspec fetched. 274 Specify multiple values to get an octopus merge. 275 If you wish to setup `git pull` so that it merges into <name> from 276 another branch in the local repository, you can point 277 branch.<name>.merge to the desired branch, and use the special setting 278 `.` (a period) for branch.<name>.remote. 279 280color.branch:: 281 A boolean to enable/disable color in the output of 282 gitlink:git-branch[1]. May be set to `true` (or `always`), 283 `false` (or `never`) or `auto`, in which case colors are used 284 only when the output is to a terminal. Defaults to false. 285 286color.branch.<slot>:: 287 Use customized color for branch coloration. `<slot>` is one of 288 `current` (the current branch), `local` (a local branch), 289 `remote` (a tracking branch in refs/remotes/), `plain` (other 290 refs). 291+ 292The value for these configuration variables is a list of colors (at most 293two) and attributes (at most one), separated by spaces. The colors 294accepted are `normal`, `black`, `red`, `green`, `yellow`, `blue`, 295`magenta`, `cyan` and `white`; the attributes are `bold`, `dim`, `ul`, 296`blink` and `reverse`. The first color given is the foreground; the 297second is the background. The position of the attribute, if any, 298doesn't matter. 299 300color.diff:: 301 When true (or `always`), always use colors in patch. 302 When false (or `never`), never. When set to `auto`, use 303 colors only when the output is to the terminal. 304 305color.diff.<slot>:: 306 Use customized color for diff colorization. `<slot>` specifies 307 which part of the patch to use the specified color, and is one 308 of `plain` (context text), `meta` (metainformation), `frag` 309 (hunk header), `old` (removed lines), `new` (added lines), 310 `commit` (commit headers), or `whitespace` (highlighting dubious 311 whitespace). The values of these variables may be specified as 312 in color.branch.<slot>. 313 314color.pager:: 315 A boolean to enable/disable colored output when the pager is in 316 use (default is true). 317 318color.status:: 319 A boolean to enable/disable color in the output of 320 gitlink:git-status[1]. May be set to `true` (or `always`), 321 `false` (or `never`) or `auto`, in which case colors are used 322 only when the output is to a terminal. Defaults to false. 323 324color.status.<slot>:: 325 Use customized color for status colorization. `<slot>` is 326 one of `header` (the header text of the status message), 327 `added` or `updated` (files which are added but not committed), 328 `changed` (files which are changed but not added in the index), 329 or `untracked` (files which are not tracked by git). The values of 330 these variables may be specified as in color.branch.<slot>. 331 332diff.renameLimit:: 333 The number of files to consider when performing the copy/rename 334 detection; equivalent to the git diff option '-l'. 335 336diff.renames:: 337 Tells git to detect renames. If set to any boolean value, it 338 will enable basic rename detection. If set to "copies" or 339 "copy", it will detect copies, as well. 340 341fetch.unpackLimit:: 342 If the number of objects fetched over the git native 343 transfer is below this 344 limit, then the objects will be unpacked into loose object 345 files. However if the number of received objects equals or 346 exceeds this limit then the received pack will be stored as 347 a pack, after adding any missing delta bases. Storing the 348 pack from a push can make the push operation complete faster, 349 especially on slow filesystems. 350 351format.headers:: 352 Additional email headers to include in a patch to be submitted 353 by mail. See gitlink:git-format-patch[1]. 354 355format.suffix:: 356 The default for format-patch is to output files with the suffix 357 `.patch`. Use this variable to change that suffix (make sure to 358 include the dot if you want it). 359 360gc.packrefs:: 361 `git gc` does not run `git pack-refs` in a bare repository by 362 default so that older dumb-transport clients can still fetch 363 from the repository. Setting this to `true` lets `git 364 gc` to run `git pack-refs`. Setting this to `false` tells 365 `git gc` never to run `git pack-refs`. The default setting is 366 `notbare`. Enable it only when you know you do not have to 367 support such clients. The default setting will change to `true` 368 at some stage, and setting this to `false` will continue to 369 prevent `git pack-refs` from being run from `git gc`. 370 371gc.reflogexpire:: 372 `git reflog expire` removes reflog entries older than 373 this time; defaults to 90 days. 374 375gc.reflogexpireunreachable:: 376 `git reflog expire` removes reflog entries older than 377 this time and are not reachable from the current tip; 378 defaults to 30 days. 379 380gc.rerereresolved:: 381 Records of conflicted merge you resolved earlier are 382 kept for this many days when `git rerere gc` is run. 383 The default is 60 days. See gitlink:git-rerere[1]. 384 385gc.rerereunresolved:: 386 Records of conflicted merge you have not resolved are 387 kept for this many days when `git rerere gc` is run. 388 The default is 15 days. See gitlink:git-rerere[1]. 389 390gitcvs.enabled:: 391 Whether the cvs pserver interface is enabled for this repository. 392 See gitlink:git-cvsserver[1]. 393 394gitcvs.logfile:: 395 Path to a log file where the cvs pserver interface well... logs 396 various stuff. See gitlink:git-cvsserver[1]. 397 398http.sslVerify:: 399 Whether to verify the SSL certificate when fetching or pushing 400 over HTTPS. Can be overridden by the 'GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY' environment 401 variable. 402 403http.sslCert:: 404 File containing the SSL certificate when fetching or pushing 405 over HTTPS. Can be overridden by the 'GIT_SSL_CERT' environment 406 variable. 407 408http.sslKey:: 409 File containing the SSL private key when fetching or pushing 410 over HTTPS. Can be overridden by the 'GIT_SSL_KEY' environment 411 variable. 412 413http.sslCAInfo:: 414 File containing the certificates to verify the peer with when 415 fetching or pushing over HTTPS. Can be overridden by the 416 'GIT_SSL_CAINFO' environment variable. 417 418http.sslCAPath:: 419 Path containing files with the CA certificates to verify the peer 420 with when fetching or pushing over HTTPS. Can be overridden 421 by the 'GIT_SSL_CAPATH' environment variable. 422 423http.maxRequests:: 424 How many HTTP requests to launch in parallel. Can be overridden 425 by the 'GIT_HTTP_MAX_REQUESTS' environment variable. Default is 5. 426 427http.lowSpeedLimit, http.lowSpeedTime:: 428 If the HTTP transfer speed is less than 'http.lowSpeedLimit' 429 for longer than 'http.lowSpeedTime' seconds, the transfer is aborted. 430 Can be overridden by the 'GIT_HTTP_LOW_SPEED_LIMIT' and 431 'GIT_HTTP_LOW_SPEED_TIME' environment variables. 432 433http.noEPSV:: 434 A boolean which disables using of EPSV ftp command by curl. 435 This can helpful with some "poor" ftp servers which doesn't 436 support EPSV mode. Can be overridden by the 'GIT_CURL_FTP_NO_EPSV' 437 environment variable. Default is false (curl will use EPSV). 438 439i18n.commitEncoding:: 440 Character encoding the commit messages are stored in; git itself 441 does not care per se, but this information is necessary e.g. when 442 importing commits from emails or in the gitk graphical history 443 browser (and possibly at other places in the future or in other 444 porcelains). See e.g. gitlink:git-mailinfo[1]. Defaults to 'utf-8'. 445 446i18n.logOutputEncoding:: 447 Character encoding the commit messages are converted to when 448 running `git-log` and friends. 449 450log.showroot:: 451 If true, the initial commit will be shown as a big creation event. 452 This is equivalent to a diff against an empty tree. 453 Tools like gitlink:git-log[1] or gitlink:git-whatchanged[1], which 454 normally hide the root commit will now show it. True by default. 455 456merge.summary:: 457 Whether to include summaries of merged commits in newly created 458 merge commit messages. False by default. 459 460merge.tool:: 461 Controls which merge resolution program is used by 462 gitlink:git-mergetool[l]. Valid values are: "kdiff3", "tkdiff", 463 "meld", "xxdiff", "emerge", "vimdiff" 464 465merge.verbosity:: 466 Controls the amount of output shown by the recursive merge 467 strategy. Level 0 outputs nothing except a final error 468 message if conflicts were detected. Level 1 outputs only 469 conflicts, 2 outputs conflicts and file changes. Level 5 and 470 above outputs debugging information. The default is level 2. 471 472pack.window:: 473 The size of the window used by gitlink:git-pack-objects[1] when no 474 window size is given on the command line. Defaults to 10. 475 476pull.octopus:: 477 The default merge strategy to use when pulling multiple branches 478 at once. 479 480pull.twohead:: 481 The default merge strategy to use when pulling a single branch. 482 483remote.<name>.url:: 484 The URL of a remote repository. See gitlink:git-fetch[1] or 485 gitlink:git-push[1]. 486 487remote.<name>.fetch:: 488 The default set of "refspec" for gitlink:git-fetch[1]. See 489 gitlink:git-fetch[1]. 490 491remote.<name>.push:: 492 The default set of "refspec" for gitlink:git-push[1]. See 493 gitlink:git-push[1]. 494 495remote.<name>.skipDefaultUpdate:: 496 If true, this remote will be skipped by default when updating 497 using the remote subcommand of gitlink:git-remote[1]. 498 499remote.<name>.receivepack:: 500 The default program to execute on the remote side when pushing. See 501 option \--exec of gitlink:git-push[1]. 502 503remote.<name>.uploadpack:: 504 The default program to execute on the remote side when fetching. See 505 option \--exec of gitlink:git-fetch-pack[1]. 506 507remote.<name>.tagopt:: 508 Setting this value to --no-tags disables automatic tag following when fetching 509 from remote <name> 510 511remotes.<group>:: 512 The list of remotes which are fetched by "git remote update 513 <group>". See gitlink:git-remote[1]. 514 515repack.usedeltabaseoffset:: 516 Allow gitlink:git-repack[1] to create packs that uses 517 delta-base offset. Defaults to false. 518 519show.difftree:: 520 The default gitlink:git-diff-tree[1] arguments to be used 521 for gitlink:git-show[1]. 522 523showbranch.default:: 524 The default set of branches for gitlink:git-show-branch[1]. 525 See gitlink:git-show-branch[1]. 526 527tar.umask:: 528 By default, gitlink:git-tar-tree[1] sets file and directories modes 529 to 0666 or 0777. While this is both useful and acceptable for projects 530 such as the Linux Kernel, it might be excessive for other projects. 531 With this variable, it becomes possible to tell 532 gitlink:git-tar-tree[1] to apply a specific umask to the modes above. 533 The special value "user" indicates that the user's current umask will 534 be used. This should be enough for most projects, as it will lead to 535 the same permissions as gitlink:git-checkout[1] would use. The default 536 value remains 0, which means world read-write. 537 538user.email:: 539 Your email address to be recorded in any newly created commits. 540 Can be overridden by the 'GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL' and 'GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL' 541 environment variables. See gitlink:git-commit-tree[1]. 542 543user.name:: 544 Your full name to be recorded in any newly created commits. 545 Can be overridden by the 'GIT_AUTHOR_NAME' and 'GIT_COMMITTER_NAME' 546 environment variables. See gitlink:git-commit-tree[1]. 547 548user.signingkey:: 549 If gitlink:git-tag[1] is not selecting the key you want it to 550 automatically when creating a signed tag, you can override the 551 default selection with this variable. This option is passed 552 unchanged to gpg's --local-user parameter, so you may specify a key 553 using any method that gpg supports. 554 555whatchanged.difftree:: 556 The default gitlink:git-diff-tree[1] arguments to be used 557 for gitlink:git-whatchanged[1]. 558 559imap:: 560 The configuration variables in the 'imap' section are described 561 in gitlink:git-imap-send[1]. 562 563receive.unpackLimit:: 564 If the number of objects received in a push is below this 565 limit then the objects will be unpacked into loose object 566 files. However if the number of received objects equals or 567 exceeds this limit then the received pack will be stored as 568 a pack, after adding any missing delta bases. Storing the 569 pack from a push can make the push operation complete faster, 570 especially on slow filesystems. 571 572receive.denyNonFastForwards:: 573 If set to true, git-receive-pack will deny a ref update which is 574 not a fast forward. Use this to prevent such an update via a push, 575 even if that push is forced. This configuration variable is 576 set when initializing a shared repository. 577 578transfer.unpackLimit:: 579 When `fetch.unpackLimit` or `receive.unpackLimit` are 580 not set, the value of this variable is used instead. 581 582