:lady_beetle: MSYS MINGW64 doesn't respect chmod and reports different file permissions than Cygwin

[eabase]

Using:

# MSYS
Bash Version :  5.2.37(2)-release
MSYS Version :  MINGW64_NT-10.0-26100 version 3.6.4-23a25d49.x86_64 (runneradmin@runnervm51nrn) (gcc version 15.1.0 (GCC) ) 2025-07-16 16:15 UTC

# Cygwin
Bash Version :  5.2.21(1)-release
CygW Version :  CYGWIN_NT-10.0-26100 version 3.6.4-1.x86_64 (runneradmin@runnervm51nrn) (gcc version 12.5.0 (GCC) ) 2025-07-15 07:55 UTC

My editor refused to recognize some files, even though they had the same extension. It turned out that it was picking up on the file permissions.

# MSYS / MINGW64
# ls -al
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxxx Nobody  2316 Aug 20 21:54 G3_CMakeLists.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 xxxx Nobody  6032 Aug 20 23:40 G4_CMakeLists.txt

So I tried to change permission using: chmod 755 G3_CMakeLists.txt but nothing happened.

Then I checked the same in Cygwin:

# Cygwin
# ls -al
-rwxrwx---+ 1 xxxx Nobody  2316 Aug 20 21:54 G3_CMakeLists.txt
-rwxrwx---+ 1 xxxx Nobody  6032 Aug 20 23:40 G4_CMakeLists.txt

WTF is going on?

[lazka]

MSYS2 mounts everything with noacl, while cygwin doesn't. executable bit is detected via heuristics then, like when there is a shebang in the file for example.

[eabase]

@lazka

MSYS2 mounts everything with noacl, ...

Wow, ok, interesting. But how does that work? Where can I get more info on this?

This brings up many questions:

• Is there any workarounds to implement and make chmod work in MSYS?
• So then, what acl become the effective default for new files and directories created under MSYS?
• What is the reason behind this?
• How can I check effective ACL's from MSYS?

Finally, is this a bug or by design?

[jeremyd2019]

MSYS2 mounts everything with noacl, ...

Wow, ok, interesting. But how does that work? Where can I get more info on this?

https://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/mount.html

This brings up many questions:

• Is there any workarounds to implement and make chmod work in MSYS?

edit /etc/fstab and remove noacl options.

[eabase]

Ok, this was useful:

• https://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-cygwinenv.html

Still not sure why acl is turned off by default in MSYS, and if turning it back on, is gonna create issues when updating with pacman.