How to update Git in Ubuntu + Windows Subsystem for Linux

Recently, the Git team announced a vulnerability in Git’s cloning mechanism. To mitigate this vulnerability, the team released version 2.30.2.

I use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), specifically the Ubuntu distribution. In this blog post, I’ll show you how to update Git on your machine (whether specifically for this vulnerability, or in the future).

Check your Git version

To check your Git version, run git --version from your command-line:

$ git --version
git version 2.25.1

Add git-core PPA

Ubuntu’s default package repository often doesn’t package a new version of Git for users. At time of writing, the newest version that needs to be installed is 2.30.2, but the most up-to-date version in Ubuntu’s repository is 2.15.0.

To fix this, you’ll need to add a PPA (Personal Package Archive), maintained by the Git team for Ubuntu users. Begin by adding the PPA:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:git-core/ppa

Install a new version of Git

Once you’ve added the git-core PPA, you can update your repository cache, and install Git from the new source:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install git

Once you’ve installed your new version, confirm that git --version returns a newer version of Git:

$ git --version
git version 2.30.2