First call git checkout does not work in Windows Docker container in mounted host volume folder

[mariuszkochanowski]

• I was not able to find an open or [closed]
  I have found similar issue: Git clone does not work in Windows Docker container in mounted host volume folder #1007

Setup

• Which version of Git for Windows are you using? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

$ git --version --build-options

git version 2.28.0.windows.1
cpu: x86_64
built from commit: 77982caf269b7ee713a76da2bcf260c34d3bf7a7
sizeof-long: 4
sizeof-size_t: 8
shell-path: /bin/sh

• Which version of Windows are you running? Vista, 7, 8, 10? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

$ cmd.exe /c ver

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19041.388]

• What options did you set as part of the installation? Or did you choose the
  defaults?

# One of the following:
> type "C:\Program Files\Git\etc\install-options.txt"
> type "C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\etc\install-options.txt"
> type "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Programs\Git\etc\install-options.txt"
$ cat /etc/install-options.txt

** insert your machine's response here **

• Any other interesting things about your environment that might be related
  to the issue you're seeing?

Running Git for Windows in a Windows Container directly on a volume mount point.

Details

• Which terminal/shell are you running Git from? e.g Bash/CMD/PowerShell/other

** insert your response here **

• What commands did you run to trigger this issue? If you can provide a
  Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example
  this will help us understand the issue.

After 'git clone' first direct call of 'git checkout mybranchname' always ends witch error:
cannot lock ref 'refs/heads/mybranchname': unable to resolve reference 'refs/heads/mybranchname': Not a directory

Second call works properly.

It occours in  in mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:2004 in mounted host volume folder.
It not occours in not mounted volume folder and directry in host machine

• What did you expect to occur after running these commands?

** insert here **

• What actually happened instead?

** insert here **

• If the problem was occurring with a specific repository, can you provide the
  URL to that repository to help us with testing?

** insert URL here **

[dscho]

Are you able to build Git? It would be interesting to instrument the code (read: litter it with debug print statements) and figure out where the actual root cause lies, and what error code is actually returned (and why). For starters, I would start with these code locations, if I were you:

$ git grep "unable to resolve reference" \*.c
refs/files-backend.c:                           strbuf_addf(err, "unable to resolve reference '%s'",
refs/files-backend.c:                           strbuf_addf(err, "unable to resolve reference '%s'",
refs/files-backend.c:                           strbuf_addf(err, "unable to resolve reference '%s'",
refs/files-backend.c:                   strbuf_addf(err, "unable to resolve reference '%s': "
refs/files-backend.c:                   strbuf_addf(err, "unable to resolve reference '%s': %s",
refs/files-backend.c:                   strbuf_addf(err, "unable to resolve reference '%s': %s",

[mariuszkochanowski]

Error message is from line 706 of refs/files-backend.c file.
I tested it with 2 branch names:

1. myfeature
2. feature/myfeature
   Error occured only in second case in mounted host volume folder.

More detailed info:

after git clone command of repository:

a ) in mounted volume also in mounted host volume folder
first call command 'git checkout feature/myfeaturename'
creates folder .git\refs\heads\featue
and ends with mentioned error 'unable to resolve reference'

second call command 'git checkout feature/myfeaturename'
creates file .git\refs\heads\featue\myfeaturename

b) directly in windows host machine:
first call command 'git checkout feature/myfeaturename'
immediately creates file .git\refs\heads\featue\myfeaturename
and ends without error

[dscho]

Error message is from line 706 of refs/files-backend.c file.

So something in files_read_raw_ref() does not work, most likely creating the directory? My wild guess is that safe_create_leading_directories() fails to create the directory...

[dscho]

@mariuszkochanowski did you get a chance to dig further?

[mariuszkochanowski]

I've prepared a reproducible example:
https://github.com/mariuszkochanowski/GitIssue.git
Just checkout branch develop or master and run docker-compose_up.sh
It requires docker for windows. It will download mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:2004 image and git for windows installer.
Output from docker console:

C:\>cd c:\data
c:\data>RMDIR GitIssue /S /Q
The system cannot find the file specified.
c:\data>git clone https://github.com/mariuszkochanowski/GitIssue.git
Cloning into 'GitIssue'...
c:\data>cd GitIssue
c:\data\GitIssue>git fetch
c:\data\GitIssue>git checkout "feature/branchname"
fatal: cannot lock ref 'refs/heads/feature/branchname': unable to resolve reference 'refs/heads/feature/branchname': Not a directory

[dscho]

@mariuszkochanowski do you think you will have a chance to test this with git.exe built from (instrumented) source?

[mariuszkochanowski]

I tried to dig further using output from my printf function inserts (in files sha1-file.c and files-backend.c) but i didn't find the cause of the problem. I tried to modify mingw.c file but it caused compilation errors.

[dscho]

@mariuszkochanowski after hours trying to get Docker to run in an Azure VM, I got this:

PS C:\Users\me\Desktop\GitIssue-b6afaa3157ad0cd34080b92f0d36571327f6c055> docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml build
Building git_for_windows_issue_2778
Step 1/8 : FROM mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:2004
2004: Pulling from windows/servercore
ERROR: Service 'git_for_windows_issue_2778' failed to build: no matching manifest for windows/amd64 10.0.17763 in the manifest list entries

Any idea what is going wrong?

[mariuszkochanowski]

I am using docker desktop on windows stable version (switched to windows containers):
You can download it from:
https://hub.docker.com/editions/community/docker-ce-desktop-windows/

In thread:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48066994/docker-no-matching-manifest-for-windows-amd64-in-the-manifest-list-entries
i found:
"In my case it was that the Windows OS version I was on did not support the tag"

You could try run it on image:

mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:ltsc2019
or
mcr.microsoft.com/windows/nanoserver:1803-amd64

List of images:
https://hub.docker.com/_/microsoft-windows-servercore

[dscho]

Unfortunately, at some stage my Docker for Windows setup broke, and I never managed to get it back to work. And then this ticket got buried in my inbox.

@mariuszkochanowski are you still interested in this? I could walk you through building Git, patching it to include tons of debug messages, and then using it in a Docker container via a mapped volume.