How to Fix Git 'Permission Denied' error

🧠 Solution for My Noob and Impatient Users

• Check if your git credential is correctly set or not

  git config --list
  

  The output should look something like the following screenshot

• If you just want the fix (no stories, no theory):

  sudo chown -R $USER:$USER .git
  

  Here $USER is your username of ubuntu/ windows.

• Then retry your commit:

  git commit -m "your message"
  

Boom 💥— you’re done.

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🧩 The Real Story Behind It

While working inside WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), I ran into this annoying error while trying to commit my Frappe app code:

fatal: could not open '.git/COMMIT_EDITMSG': Permission denied

At first, it looked like a random Git glitch. But it turns out it was me — I had previously run a Git command with sudo, and WSL dutifully created a few .git files owned by root.

That one small mistake locked me out from writing new commit messages.

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🧾 Why It Happens in WSL

In WSL, file ownership behaves like a regular Linux system. When you use sudo inside your project folder, all files Git touches (like .git/config, index, COMMIT_EDITMSG) become owned by root. Later, when you try to run normal Git commands as your normal user, WSL politely says:

“Permission denied.”

It’s not Git’s fault — it’s Linux being strict about file ownership.

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🛠️ Step-by-Step Fix

1. Check which files are owned by root

ls -l .git

You’ll see the output something like:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   52 Nov 12 02:28 COMMIT_EDITMSG
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  101 Nov 12 22:56 FETCH_HEAD
...

means:

There’s a file named COMMIT_EDITMSG that is owned by root, only root can edit it (others can only read it), and it was last modified on Nov 12 at 2:28 AM.

Here’s what each part means 👇

Section	Example	Meaning
File permission	-rw-r--r--	This shows who can read or write the file. • r = read, w = write, x = execute. • The first rw- means the owner can read/write. • The next r-- means the group can only read. • The last r-- means others can only read.
Number of links	1	How many links (copies or references) point to this file. You can ignore this for now.
Owner name	root	The user who owns the file. Here, root = the system’s admin user.
Group name	root	The group that owns the file — also root here.
File size	52	File size in bytes. (So 52 bytes = a tiny text file.)
Last modified date	Nov 12 02:28	The date and time when this file was last changed.
File name	COMMIT_EDITMSG	The actual name of the file.

2. Take ownership back

Run this inside your repo:

Here $USER is your username of ubuntu/ windows.

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER .git

Which means:

“Give ownership of all .git files back to me.”

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If you want to fix everything in your bench or project folder:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER ~/frappe-bench

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3. Verify ownership

ls -ld .git

You should see:

drwxrwxr-x  ... sab sab ...

means:

“This is a directory owned by user sab. The owner and their group can read, write, and read it. Other users can only read and open it, but not modify it.”

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💡 Quick Legend (for memory)

Symbol	Meaning
d	directory (folder)
-	normal file
l	symbolic link
r	read
w	write
x	execute (or enter, for folders)

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4. Retry your commit

git commit -m "fix: corrected social link fields and updated b_event script"

✅ It should now work flawlessly.

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🚫 Don’t Use sudo git

This is the real lesson. Never use sudo with Git — not even once — unless you absolutely need to modify system-level repositories.

In a dev setup (especially WSL), you should always:

• Run Git as your normal Linux user
• Use SSH keys for authentication
• Avoid running any bench or git command with sudo unless it’s for system-level tasks

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💡 Bonus Tip: Fix All Your Git Repos at Once

If you often work in multiple apps inside frappe-bench:

cd ~/frappe-bench/apps
for app in */; do sudo chown -R $USER:$USER "$app/.git"; done

That’ll recursively fix ownership for all apps in one go.

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✅ Summary

Problem	Cause	Fix
fatal: could not open '.git/COMMIT_EDITMSG': Permission denied	You ran sudo git and .git files became owned by root	sudo chown -R $USER:$USER .git
Can’t push or pull without password	SSH key not configured	Use ssh-keygen and add to GitHub
Ownership issues across bench	Mixed sudo operations	Fix all with a for-loop or chown bench

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🧩 Final Thoughts

WSL is amazing — but it plays by Linux rules. Once you stop mixing sudo with normal Git operations, life gets much smoother.

So next time you see “Permission Denied,” remember:

It’s not Git being stubborn — it’s just protecting your house keys from the wrong user. 🔑