Problem Definition

Currently Bitbucket Server uses "git alternates" to minimize the space used when creating forks. This places a hard depth limit of 5 forks for each repository.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/BitbucketServerKB/Repo+cannot+be+forked.+Fork+hierarchies+are+limited+to+a+maximum+depth+of+5

Suggested Solution

Provide an option to disable "git alternates" in repositories.

Why this is important

For large enterprises, forking may be used to separate versions in order to manage large code bases for an application.

Workaround

disable "git alternates" server-wide using bitbucket.properties by adding the following:

plugin.bitbucket-git.forks.usealternates=false