What is the meaning of this .gitconfig filesystem section? [filesystem "Private Build|1.8.0_222|/home/user/.Private"]

Question

I found the following section in my global ~/.gitconfig:

[filesystem "Private Build|1.8.0_222|/home/user/.Private"]
    timestampResolution = 1001 microseconds
    minRacyThreshold = 6142 microseconds

I searched for the filesystem section or any supported section names that are allowed within the .gitconfig, but I could not find anything. It is somehow related to the fact that my home directory/partition is encrypted.

The new section was added within the last week during some updates:

 ~ stat .gitconfig 
[...]
Access: 2019-09-23 09:31:26.281891326 +0200
Modify: 2019-09-19 11:47:45.849899707 +0200
Change: 2019-09-19 11:47:45.849899707 +0200
 Birth: -

Versions

• git: 2.17.1
• OS: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
• libecryptfs1: 111-0ubuntu5

Answer 1

This comes from JGit (are you using Eclipse 2019-09?). The release notes for 5.1.9 have some more information about this along with pointers to related tickets.

Answer 2

The jgit code needs to persist that data somewhere, and for a while it would store it in the user ~/.gitconfig file.

But you can control where jgit stores this information using the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable, as documented in this jgit commit.

For example if you use gradle to run tests that use jgit, you can use:

test {
    environment "XDG_CONFIG_HOME", buildDir
}