Subject: [PATCH] receive-pack: fix crash on out-of-namespace symref

From: "Troels Thomsen via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2025 15:40:14 +0000

From: Troels Thomsen <[email-masked]>

`check_aliased_update_internal()` detects when a symbolic ref and its
target are being updated in the same push. It does this by building a
list of ref names without the optional namespace prefix. When a symbolic
ref within a namespace points to a ref outside the namespace,
`strip_namespace()` returns NULL which leads to a segfault.

A NULL check preventing this particular issue was repurposed in
ded8393610. Rather than reintroducing it, we can instead build a list of
fully qualified ref names. This prevents the crash, preserves the
consistency check from da3efdb17b, and allows updates to all symbolic
refs.

Signed-off-by: Troels Thomsen <[email-masked]>
---
    receive-pack: fix crash on out-of-namespace symref

Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-git-2144%2Ftt%2Ffix-crash-on-out-of-namespace-symref-v1
Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-git-2144/tt/fix-crash-on-out-of-namespace-symref-v1
Pull-Request: https://github.com/git/git/pull/2144

 builtin/receive-pack.c           |  9 ++++++---
 t/t5509-fetch-push-namespaces.sh | 13 +++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/builtin/receive-pack.c b/builtin/receive-pack.c
index 9c49174616..a9e0568e94 100644
--- a/builtin/receive-pack.c
+++ b/builtin/receive-pack.c
@@ -1685,7 +1685,6 @@ static void check_aliased_update_internal(struct command *cmd,
 		cmd->error_string = "broken symref";
 		return;
 	}
-	dst_name = strip_namespace(dst_name);
 
 	if (!(item = string_list_lookup(list, dst_name)))
 		return;
@@ -1730,10 +1729,13 @@ static void check_aliased_updates(struct command *commands)
 {
 	struct command *cmd;
 	struct string_list ref_list = STRING_LIST_INIT_NODUP;
+	struct strbuf ref_name = STRBUF_INIT;
 
 	for (cmd = commands; cmd; cmd = cmd->next) {
-		struct string_list_item *item =
-			string_list_append(&ref_list, cmd->ref_name);
+		struct string_list_item *item;
+		strbuf_reset(&ref_name);
+		strbuf_addf(&ref_name, "%s%s", get_git_namespace(), cmd->ref_name);
+		item = string_list_append(&ref_list, ref_name.buf);
 		item->util = (void *)cmd;
 	}
 	string_list_sort(&ref_list);
@@ -1743,6 +1745,7 @@ static void check_aliased_updates(struct command *commands)
 			check_aliased_update(cmd, &ref_list);
 	}
 
+	strbuf_release(&ref_name);
 	string_list_clear(&ref_list, 0);
 }
 
diff --git a/t/t5509-fetch-push-namespaces.sh b/t/t5509-fetch-push-namespaces.sh
index 095df1a753..3c333ccc5f 100755
--- a/t/t5509-fetch-push-namespaces.sh
+++ b/t/t5509-fetch-push-namespaces.sh
@@ -175,4 +175,17 @@ test_expect_success 'denyCurrentBranch and unborn branch with ref namespace' '
 	)
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'pushing to symref pointing outside the namespace' '
+	(
+		cd pushee &&
+		git symbolic-ref refs/namespaces/namespace/refs/heads/main refs/heads/main &&
+		cd ../original &&
+		git push pushee-namespaced main &&
+		git ls-remote pushee-unnamespaced refs/heads/main >actual &&
+		printf "$commit1\trefs/heads/main\n" >expected &&
+		printf "$commit1\trefs/namespaces/namespace/refs/heads/main\n" >>expected &&
+		test_cmp expected actual
+	)
+'
+
 test_done

base-commit: 66ce5f8e8872f0183bb137911c52b07f1f242d13
-- 
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