It seems that if you use the subpath= parameter in a git:// URI in SRC_URI and have / at the start or the end of the specified value, the result can be that files in your home directory get deleted: https://lists.yoctoproject.org/pipermail/yocto/2015-April/024552.html This is due to the git fetcher code improperly splitting and joining the path and then not validating the result, which is either / or somewhere else we shouldn't be touching, and then attempting to clean that location out prior to unpacking.
Additional note - this bug has probably been present since the subpath option was introduced; it's rarely used hence the reason why we haven't seen this issue before.
I've sent a simple patch for this, see http://lists.openembedded.org/pipermail/bitbake-devel/2015-April/005659.html. Sofar, I've not looked at whether a leading '/' in subpath can cause any issues later on. If so, that could be handled by adding .strip('/') on subpath in the line before the one I'm touching here.
OK, the above patch has been merged, thanks Anders. I'll send a follow-up today with additional checks.
Follow up patch with extra checks sent: http://lists.openembedded.org/pipermail/bitbake-devel/2015-April/005664.html
Where we are with this now - the aforementioned patches have been merged to master: http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=65e985976989c30a94d6e78c8cb348af93fa0878 http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=72d88f29da1ece634028420317233a45ff8e015b The next step is to backport them to fido, dizzy, and daisy at minimum.
These fixes have now been backported to fido, dizzy and daisy. Marking as resolved.
Verified on commit bc6a1a23e3d1af3861288a7abdbc9d5010470204.