Windows-specific Git configuration settings; where are they set?

Question

I've read the Git documentation and Where do the settings in my Git configuration come from? and yet I still can't make sense of some of my settings.

I'm on Git 2.5.3 on Windows 10. Here's the output of git config -l:

λ git config -l core.symlinks=false core.autocrlf=true color.diff=auto color.status=auto color.branch=auto color.interactive=true pack.packsizelimit=2g help.format=html http.sslcainfo=C:/Program Files/Git/mingw64/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt sendemail.smtpserver=/bin/msmtp.exe diff.astextplain.textconv=astextplain rebase.autosquash=true user.name=Ben Collins user.email=#redacted# alias.sm=submodule alias.br=branch alias.co=checkout alias.st=status alias.rebuild=!git rm --cached -r . && git reset --hard core.excludesfile=C:\Users\Benjamin\Documents\gitignore_global.txt core.editor=c:/Users/Benjamin/AppData/Local/atom/bin/atom.cmd core.attributesfile=C:\Users\Benjamin\.gitattributes push.default=simple merge.tool=p4merge mergetool.p4merge.cmd=p4merge.exe "$BASE" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED" mergetool.p4merge.path=C:/Program Files/Perforce/p4merge.exe gui.encoding=utf-8 diff.guitool=p4merge difftool.p4merge.path=C:/Program Files/Perforce/p4merge.exe difftool.p4merge.cmd=p4merge.exe "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" mergetool.keepbackup=false rerere.enabled=true credential.helper=!'C:\Users\Benjamin\AppData\Roaming\GitCredStore\git-credential-winstore.exe' filter.lfs.clean=git lfs clean %f filter.lfs.smudge=git lfs smudge %f filter.lfs.required=true color.diff.whitespace=red reverse 

What's bothersome is that the first twelve settings I cannot find anywhere.

C:\Program Files\Git λ git config --system --list fatal: unable to read config file 'C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64/etc/gitconfig': No such file or directory C:\Program Files\Git λ git config --global --list user.name=Ben Collins user.email=#redacted# alias.sm=submodule alias.br=branch alias.co=checkout alias.st=status alias.rebuild=!git rm --cached -r . && git reset --hard core.excludesfile=C:\Users\Benjamin\Documents\gitignore_global.txt core.editor=c:/Users/Benjamin/AppData/Local/atom/bin/atom.cmd core.attributesfile=C:\Users\Benjamin\.gitattributes push.default=simple merge.tool=p4merge mergetool.p4merge.cmd=p4merge.exe "$BASE" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED" mergetool.p4merge.path=C:/Program Files/Perforce/p4merge.exe gui.encoding=utf-8 diff.guitool=p4merge difftool.p4merge.path=C:/Program Files/Perforce/p4merge.exe difftool.p4merge.cmd=p4merge.exe "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" mergetool.keepbackup=false rerere.enabled=true credential.helper=!'C:\Users\Benjamin\AppData\Roaming\GitCredStore\git-credential-winstore.exe' filter.lfs.clean=git lfs clean %f filter.lfs.smudge=git lfs smudge %f filter.lfs.required=true color.diff.whitespace=red reverse 

Also, when I try to unset one of the first twelve settings, it has no effect:

C:\Users\Benjamin\Projects\blah [master +0 ~1 -0] λ git config --unset core.autocrlf C:\Users\Benjamin\Projects\blah [master +0 ~1 -0] λ git config core.autocrlf true C:\Users\Benjamin\Projects\Saddleback\cm-core [master +0 ~1 -0] λ git config --unset-all core.autocrlf C:\Users\Benjamin\Projects\Saddleback\cm-core [master +0 ~1 -0] λ git config core.autocrlf true 

Are these first twelve settings hardcoded or platform-specific somehow? How do I get control of them?

Answer 1

As this commit explains, they've added another config location only for Windows, which is applied even before the --system:

The file /etc/gitconfig can be used to store a system-wide default configuration. On Windows, configuration can also be stored in C:\ProgramData\Git\config; This file will be used also by libgit2-based software.

...

On Windows, as there is no central /etc/ directory, there is yet another config file, intended to contain settings for all Git-related software running on the machine. Consequently, this config file takes an even lower precedence than the $(prefix)/etc/gitconfig file.

So I believe you can find those mystery settings in C:\ProgramData\Git\config.

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From that commit I can see that git config --system --list should've shown you those settings, but it seems that the absence of C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64/etc/gitconfig file aborted the operation, which is probably a bug.

Answer 2

In my version of git there is a --show-origin switch on the list command which gives away where the setting was applied from. I agree that it's confusing that there is no provided switch to access the windows configuration location inside ProgramData.

C:\Users\karlb>git --version git version 2.11.0.windows.3  C:\Users\karlb>git config --list --show-origin file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       core.symlinks=false file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       core.autocrlf=true file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       core.fscache=true file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       color.diff=auto file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       color.status=auto file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       color.branch=auto file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       color.interactive=true file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       help.format=html file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       http.sslcainfo=C:/Program Files/Git/mingw64/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       diff.astextplain.textconv=astextplain file:"C:\\ProgramData/Git/config"       rebase.autosquash=true file:"C:\\Program Files\\Git\\mingw64/etc/gitconfig"    credential.helper=manager file:"C:\\Program Files\\Git\\mingw64/etc/gitconfig"    difftool.usebuiltin=true file:"C:\\Program Files\\Git\\mingw64/etc/gitconfig"    alias.lol=log --oneline --graph file:"C:\\Program Files\\Git\\mingw64/etc/gitconfig"    alias.last=log -1 HEAD file:C:/Users/karlb/.gitconfig  [email protected] file:C:/Users/karlb/.gitconfig  user.name=Karl Horton