! aliases not working in MinGit busybox builds #5184

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1. ibaidev commented on Oct 1, 2024

   

   ibaidev

   on Oct 1, 2024

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   It seems that it is trying to use busybox as a shell:

   $ set GIT_TRACE=1
   $ git hello
   16:11:54.778289 exec-cmd.c:243          trace: resolved executable dir: C:/Users/user/Downloads/MinGit-2.46.2-busybox-64-bit/mingw64/bin
   16:11:54.793944 git.c:758               trace: exec: git-hello
   16:11:54.793944 run-command.c:667       trace: run_command: git-hello
   16:11:54.793944 run-command.c:928       trace: start_command: git-hello
   16:11:54.793944 run-command.c:667       trace: run_command: 'C:\Users\user\Downloads\MinGit-2.46.2-busybox-64-bit\mingw64\bin\busybox.exe' --help
   16:11:54.793944 run-command.c:928       trace: start_command: 'C:\Users\user\Downloads\MinGit-2.46.2-busybox-64-bit\mingw64\bin\busybox.exe' --help
   16:11:54.825164 run-command.c:667       trace: run_command: 'echo '\''Hello World'\'''
   16:11:54.825164 run-command.c:928       trace: start_command: C:/Users/user/Downloads/MinGit-2.46.2-busybox-64-bit/mingw64/bin/busybox.exe -c 'echo '\''Hello World'\''' 'echo '\''Hello World'\'''
   -c: applet not found
   

   and:

   $ git var GIT_SHELL_PATH
   C:/Users/user/Downloads/MinGit-2.46.2-busybox-64-bit/mingw64/bin/busybox.exe
   

   Shouldn't the shell be something like busybox.exe sh?
2. jp311 commented on Dec 7, 2024

   

   jp311

   on Dec 7, 2024

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   run-command.c#L295 has issue.
   If using busybox, you should also add "sh" to execute the command, like "busybox sh -c '...'"
3. dscho commented on Dec 9, 2024

   

   dscho

   on Dec 9, 2024

   Member

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   run-command.c#L295 has issue. If using busybox, you should also add "sh" to execute the command, like "busybox sh -c '...'"

   That, or switch to shipping busybox.exe renamed to sh.exe in /mingw64/bin (which will make it act as the default shell), maybe.
4. zcsizmadia

   added a commit that references this issue on Sep 17, 2026

   mingit: ship BusyBox as sh.exe in the BusyBox-based MinGit

   ...

   3c9e4ec
5. zcsizmadia commented on Sep 17, 2026

   

   zcsizmadia

   on Sep 17, 2026

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   Still reproduces with MinGit-2.55.0.5-busybox-64-bit.zip when the PATH contains only C:\Windows\System32, C:\Windows and MinGit's cmd directory. With GIT_TRACE=1:

   trace: start_command: .../mingw64/bin/busybox.exe -c 'echo Hello World' 'echo Hello World'
   -c: applet not found
   

   Root cause: git_shell_path() looks up sh in the PATH and uses the result as argv[0]. The BusyBox variant ships no sh.exe, so the applet fallback in compat/mingw.c returns the path of busybox.exe itself, and BusyBox reads -c as an applet name. If any other sh.exe happens to be on the PATH (an MSYS2 install, for example) the alias works, which is why this is easy to miss.

   git-for-windows/build-extra#746 ships a copy of busybox.exe as mingw64/bin/sh.exe in the BusyBox-based MinGit, as suggested above. Verified against the extracted 2.55.0.5 zip: ! aliases, clones from local paths, and hooks with #!/bin/sh and #!/bin/bash shebangs all work with the restricted PATH.
6. zcsizmadia

   added a commit that references this issue on Sep 17, 2026

   mingit: ship BusyBox as sh.exe in the BusyBox-based MinGit

   ...

   1117251