git-upload-pack: command not found, when cloning r

Question

I have been using git to keep two copies of my project in sync, one is my local box, the other the test server. This is an issue which occurs when I log onto our remote development server using ssh;

git clone [e-mail]:/home/chris/myproject
Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/myproject/.git/
Password:
bash: git-upload-pack: command not found
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
fetch-pack from '[e-mail]:/home/chris/myproject' failed.

(the file-names have been changed to protect the guilty... !)

Both boxes run Solaris 10 AMD. I have done some digging, if I add --upload-pack=$(which git-upload-pack) the command works, (and proves that $PATH contains the path to 'git-upload-pack' as per the RTFM solution) but this is really annoying, plus 'git push' doesn't work, because I don't think there is a --unpack= option.

Incidentally, all the git commands work fine from my local box, it is the same version of the software (1.5.4.2), installed on the same NFS mount at /usr/local/bin.

Can anybody help?

Answer 1

Make sure git-upload-pack is on the path from a non-login shell. (On my machine it's in /usr/bin).

To see what your path looks like on the remote machine from a non-login shell, try this:

ssh you@remotemachine echo \$PATH

(That works in Bash, Zsh, and tcsh, and probably other shells too.)

If the path it gives back doesn't include the directory that has git-upload-pack, you need to fix it by setting it in .bashrc (for Bash), .zshenv (for Zsh), .cshrc (for tcsh) or equivalent for your shell.

You will need to make this change on the remote machine.

If you're not sure which path you need to add to your remote PATH, you can find it with this command (you need to run this on the remote machine):

which git-upload-pack

On my machine that prints /usr/bin/git-upload-pack. So in this case, /usr/bin is the path you need to make sure is in your remote non-login shell PATH.

Answer 2

Like Johan pointed out many times its .bashrc that's needed:

ln -s .bash_profile .bashrc

Answer 3

You can also use the "-u" option to specify the path. I find this helpful on machines where my .bashrc doesn't get sourced in non-interactive sessions. For example,

git clone -u /home/you/bin/git-upload-pack you@machine:code

Answer 4

I have been having issues connecting to a Gitolite repo using SSH from Windows and it turned out that my problem was PLINK! It kept asking me for a password, but the ssh gitolite@[host] would return the repo list fine.

Check your environment variable: GIT_SSH. If it is set to Plink, then try it without any value ("set GIT_SSH=") and see if that works.

Answer 5

For bash, it needs to be put into .bashrc not .bash_profile (.bash_profile is also only for login shells).

Answer 6

Mac OS X and some other Unixes at least have the user path compiled into sshd for security reasons so those of us that install git as /usr/local/git/{bin,lib,...} can run into trouble as the git executables are not in the precompiled path. To override this I prefer to edit my /etc/sshd_config changing:

#PermitUserEnvironment no

to

PermitUserEnvironment yes

and then create ~/.ssh/environment files as needed. My git users have the following in their ~/.ssh/environment file:

PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/git/bin

Note variable expansion does not occur when the ~/.ssh/environment file is read so:

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/git/bin

will not work.