diff --git a/Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.5.6.txt b/Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.5.6.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..92ff92b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.5.6.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+Git v1.8.5.6 Release Notes
+==========================
+
+Fixes since v1.8.5.5
+--------------------
+
+ * We used to allow committing a path ".Git/config" with Git that is
+   running on a case sensitive filesystem, but an attempt to check out
+   such a path with Git that runs on a case insensitive filesystem
+   would have clobbered ".git/config", which is definitely not what
+   the user would have expected.  Git now prevents you from tracking
+   a path with ".Git" (in any case combination) as a path component.
+
+ * On Windows, certain path components that are different from ".git"
+   are mapped to ".git", e.g. "git~1/config" is treated as if it were
+   ".git/config".  HFS+ has a similar issue, where certain unicode
+   codepoints are ignored, e.g. ".g\u200cit/config" is treated as if
+   it were ".git/config".  Pathnames with these potential issues are
+   rejected on the affected systems.  Git on systems that are not
+   affected by this issue (e.g. Linux) can also be configured to
+   reject them to ensure cross platform interoperability of the hosted
+   projects.
+
+ * "git fsck" notices a tree object that records such a path that can
+   be confused with ".git", and with receive.fsckObjects configuration
+   set to true, an attempt to "git push" such a tree object will be
+   rejected.  Such a path may not be a problem on a well behaving
+   filesystem but in order to protect those on HFS+ and on case
+   insensitive filesystems, this check is enabled on all platforms.
+
+A big "thanks!" for bringing this issue to us goes to our friends in
+the Mercurial land, namely, Matt Mackall and Augie Fackler.
+
+Also contains typofixes, documentation updates and trivial code clean-ups.
diff --git a/Documentation/git.txt b/Documentation/git.txt
index 64da795..2ff62c5 100644
--- a/Documentation/git.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git.txt
@@ -43,9 +43,10 @@
 branch of the `git.git` repository.
 Documentation for older releases are available here:
 
-* link:v1.8.5.5/git.html[documentation for release 1.8.5.5]
+* link:v1.8.5.6/git.html[documentation for release 1.8.5.6]
 
 * release notes for
+  link:RelNotes/1.8.5.6.txt[1.8.5.6],
   link:RelNotes/1.8.5.5.txt[1.8.5.5],
   link:RelNotes/1.8.5.4.txt[1.8.5.4],
   link:RelNotes/1.8.5.3.txt[1.8.5.3],
diff --git a/GIT-VERSION-GEN b/GIT-VERSION-GEN
index c1b7e2d..4e1cc6c 100755
--- a/GIT-VERSION-GEN
+++ b/GIT-VERSION-GEN
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
 GVF=GIT-VERSION-FILE
-DEF_VER=v1.8.5.5
+DEF_VER=v1.8.5.6
 
 LF='
 '
diff --git a/RelNotes b/RelNotes
index 277f28f..f58f122 120000
--- a/RelNotes
+++ b/RelNotes
@@ -1 +1 @@
-Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.5.5.txt
\ No newline at end of file
+Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.5.6.txt
\ No newline at end of file