Subject: [PATCH v3 1/2] refspec: safely parse refspecs outside a repository

From: K Jayatheerth <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2026 11:06:16 +0530

When git-remote-http is invoked outside of a repository (for example,
by running `git ls-remote` in a non-git directory with a globally
configured fetch refspec), `the_hash_algo` is left as NULL by
setup_git_directory_gently().

parse_refspec() checks whether the LHS of a refspec is an exact OID by
evaluating `llen == the_hash_algo->hexsz`. With `the_hash_algo` being
NULL, this results in a segmentation fault. The same NULL dereference
exists in the negative refspec path.

Note that builtin/ls-remote already works around a related issue by
setting a fallback hash algorithm before calling into the transport
layer (see 9e89dcb66a). However, since remote-curl runs as a separate
process, that fix does not help here.

Guard both dereferences with a NULL check on `the_hash_algo`. When
operating outside a repository, fetching and pushing are impossible
anyway, so skipping the exact OID check is safe: the exact_sha1 flag
only influences ref prefixes sent to a remote v2 upload-pack during
fetch, and we will never reach that point without a local repository.

Reported-by: Jo Liss <[email-masked]>
Helped-by: Jeff King <[email-masked]>
Signed-off-by: K Jayatheerth <[email-masked]>
---
 refspec.c                   | 4 ++--
 t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh | 7 +++++++
 2 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/refspec.c b/refspec.c
index 0775358d96..a864a0bac2 100644
--- a/refspec.c
+++ b/refspec.c
@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ static int parse_refspec(struct refspec_item *item, const char *refspec, int fet
 		 */
 		if (!*item->src)
 			return 0; /* negative refspecs must not be empty */
-		else if (llen == the_hash_algo->hexsz && !get_oid_hex(item->src, &unused))
+		else if (the_hash_algo && llen == the_hash_algo->hexsz && !get_oid_hex(item->src, &unused))
 			return 0; /* negative refpsecs cannot be exact sha1 */
 		else if (!check_refname_format(item->src, flags))
 			; /* valid looking ref is ok */
@@ -101,7 +101,7 @@ static int parse_refspec(struct refspec_item *item, const char *refspec, int fet
 		/* LHS */
 		if (!*item->src)
 			; /* empty is ok; it means "HEAD" */
-		else if (llen == the_hash_algo->hexsz && !get_oid_hex(item->src, &unused))
+		else if (the_hash_algo && llen == the_hash_algo->hexsz && !get_oid_hex(item->src, &unused))
 			item->exact_sha1 = 1; /* ok */
 		else if (!check_refname_format(item->src, flags))
 			; /* valid looking ref is ok */
diff --git a/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh b/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh
index 73cf531580..a26b6c2844 100755
--- a/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh
+++ b/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh
@@ -782,4 +782,11 @@ test_expect_success 'tag following always works over v0 http' '
 	test_cmp expect actual
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'ls-remote outside repo does not segfault with fetch refspec' '
+	nongit git \
+		-c remote.origin.url="$HTTPD_URL/smart/repo.git" \
+		-c remote.origin.fetch=anything \
+		ls-remote origin
+'
+
 test_done
-- 
2.53.0