cmd/go/internal/load: better error message for "error obtaining VCS status"

[jingyuanliang]

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

$ go version
go version go1.22-20230908-RC04 cl/563875016 +2fe2f08542 X:fieldtrack,boringcrypto linux/amd64

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

Yes

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

go env Output

$ go env
GO111MODULE=''
GOARCH='amd64'
GOBIN=''
GOCACHE='/usr/local/google/home/jingyuanliang/.cache/go-build'
GOENV='/usr/local/google/home/jingyuanliang/.config/go/env'
GOEXE=''
GOEXPERIMENT='fieldtrack,boringcrypto'
GOFLAGS=''
GOHOSTARCH='amd64'
GOHOSTOS='linux'
GOINSECURE=''
GOMODCACHE='/usr/local/google/home/jingyuanliang/go/pkg/mod'
GONOPROXY='*.googlesource.com,*.git.corp.google.com'
GONOSUMDB='*.googlesource.com,*.git.corp.google.com'
GOOS='linux'
GOPATH='/usr/local/google/home/jingyuanliang/go'
GOPRIVATE='*.googlesource.com,*.git.corp.google.com'
GOPROXY='https://proxy.golang.org,direct'
GOROOT='/usr/lib/google-golang'
GOSUMDB='sum.golang.org'
GOTMPDIR=''
GOTOOLCHAIN='auto'
GOTOOLDIR='/usr/lib/google-golang/pkg/tool/linux_amd64'
GOVCS=''
GOVERSION='go1.22-20230908-RC04 cl/563875016 +2fe2f08542 X:fieldtrack,boringcrypto'
GCCGO='gccgo'
GOAMD64='v1'
AR='ar'
CC='clang'
CXX='clang++'
CGO_ENABLED='1'
GOMOD='/usr/local/google/home/jingyuanliang/go128/go.mod'
GOWORK=''
CGO_CFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_CPPFLAGS=''
CGO_CXXFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_FFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_LDFLAGS='-O2 -g'
PKG_CONFIG='pkg-config'
GOGCCFLAGS='-fPIC -m64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -Wl,--no-gc-sections -fmessage-length=0 -ffile-prefix-map=/tmp/go-build1980328498=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches'

What did you do?

[hi on] jingyuanliang@jingyuanliang:~$ mkdir go128
[hi on] jingyuanliang@jingyuanliang:~$ cd go128
[hi on] jingyuanliang@jingyuanliang:~/go128$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /usr/local/google/home/jingyuanliang/go128/.git/
[hi on] jingyuanliang@jingyuanliang:~/go128:main$ go mod init go128
go: creating new go.mod: module go128
[hi on] jingyuanliang@jingyuanliang:~/go128:main$ sudo chown -R root:root .
[sudo] password for jingyuanliang: 
[hi on] jingyuanliang@jingyuanliang:~/go128$ sudo chmod -R 777 .
Skippy Security Tip: Setting global read/write/execute permissions will give all users on this machine full access to these files/programs and may provide access they shouldn't otherwise have.
Suggestion: 
More info: 
Do you still want to execute this command? [y/n]y
[hi on] jingyuanliang@jingyuanliang:~/go128$ cat>main.go
package main
func main(){}
[hi on] jingyuanliang@jingyuanliang:~/go128$ go build
error obtaining VCS status: exit status 128
	Use -buildvcs=false to disable VCS stamping.
[hi on] jingyuanliang@jingyuanliang:~/go128$ 

What did you expect to see?

A clear error message, by relaying git's error message (fatal: detected dubious ownership..., probably by letting it inherit stderr stream fd=2) to user for better visibility.

Or at least it should say it's git failing, preferably print the command line used to invoke git, so users can reproduce it themselves.

What did you see instead?

error obtaining VCS status: exit status 128
	Use -buildvcs=false to disable VCS stamping.

[rusu30]

It looks like you are encountering an issue with Git while trying to build your Go project. The error message indicates that there's a problem obtaining the VCS (Version Control System) status, and it provides a suggestion to use -buildvcs=false to disable VCS stamping.

The most likely cause of this issue is related to the ownership and permissions you set on your project directory. You changed the ownership to root and granted read/write/execute permissions to everyone, which might have caused problems when Go is interacting with Git.

[mknyszek]

CC @bcmills @matloob per https://dev.golang.org/owners

[bcmills]

Duplicate of #53532