Git push error '[remote rejected] master -> ma

Question

Yesterday, I posted a question on how to clone a Git repository from one of my machines to another, How can I 'git clone' from another machine?.

I am now able to successfully clone a Git repository from my source (192.168.1.2) to my destination (192.168.1.1).

But when I did an edit to a file, a git commit -a -m "test" and a git push, I get this error on my destination (192.168.1.1):

git push                                                
hap@192.168.1.2's password: 
Counting objects: 21, done.
Compressing objects: 100% (11/11), done.
Writing objects: 100% (11/11), 1010 bytes, done.
Total 11 (delta 9), reused 0 (delta 0)
error: refusing to update checked out branch: refs/heads/master
error: By default, updating the current branch in a non-bare repository
error: is denied, because it will make the index and work tree inconsistent
error: with what you pushed, and will require 'git reset --hard' to match
error: the work tree to HEAD.
error: 
error: You can set 'receive.denyCurrentBranch' configuration variable to
error: 'ignore' or 'warn' in the remote repository to allow pushing into
error: its current branch; however, this is not recommended unless you
error: arranged to update its work tree to match what you pushed in some
error: other way.
error: 
error: To squelch this message and still keep the default behaviour, set
error: 'receive.denyCurrentBranch' configuration variable to 'refuse'.
To git+ssh://hap@192.168.1.2/media/LINUXDATA/working
! [remote rejected] master -> master (branch is currently checked out)
error: failed to push some refs to 'git+ssh://hap@192.168.1.2/media/LINUXDATA/working'

I'm using two different versions of Git (1.7 on the remote and 1.5 on the local machine). Is that a possible reason?

Answer 1

Here is one test you can do to see how the bare server stuff work:

Imagine you have a workstation and a server with live site hosted on it, and you want to update this site from time to time (this also applies to a situation where two developers are sending their work back and forth through a bare middleman).

Initialization

Create some directory on your local computer and cd into it, then execute these commands:

# initialization
git init --bare server/.git
git clone server content
git clone server local

1. First you create a bare server directory (notice the .git at the end). This directory will serve as a container for your repository files only.
2. Then clone your server repository to a newly created content directory. This is your live/production directory which will be served by your server software.
3. The first two directories resides on your server, the third one is a local directory on your workstation.

Workflow

Now here is the basic workflow:

1. Enter the local directory, create some files and commit them. Finally push them to the server:

   # create crazy stuff
   git commit -av
   git push origin master
   

2. Now enter the content directory and update the server's content:

   git pull
   

3. Repeat 1-2. Here content may be another developer that can push to the server too, and local as you may pull from him.

Answer 2

I like the idea of still having a usable repository on the remote box, but instead of a dummy branch, I like to use:

git checkout --detach

This seems to be a very new feature of Git - I'm using git version 1.7.7.4.

Answer 3

With a few setup steps you can easily deploy changes to your website using a one-liner like

git push production

Which is nice and simple, and you don't have to log into the remote server and do a pull or anything. Note that this will work best if you don't use your production checkout as a working branch! (The OP was working within a slightly different context, and I think @Robert Gould's solution addressed it well. This solution is more appropriate for deployment to a remote server.)

First you need to set up a bare repository somewhere on your server, outside of your webroot.

mkdir mywebsite.git
cd mywebsite.git
git init --bare

Then create file hooks/post-receive:

#!/bin/sh
GIT_WORK_TREE=/path/to/webroot/of/mywebsite git checkout -f

And make the file executable:

chmod +x hooks/post-receive

On your local machine,

git remote add production [e-mail]:mywebsite.git
git push production +master:refs/heads/master

All set! Now in the future you can use git push production to deploy your changes!

Credit for this solution goes to http://sebduggan.com/blog/deploy-your-website-changes-using-git/. Look there for a more detailed explanation of what's going on.

Answer 4

You have 3 options

1. Pull and push again:

   git pull; git push
   

2. Push into different branch:

   git push origin master:foo
   

   and merge it on remote (either by git or pull-request)

   git merge foo
   

3. Force it (not recommended unless you deliberately changed commits via rebase):

   git push origin master -f
   

   If still refused, disable denyCurrentBranch on remote repository:

   git config receive.denyCurrentBranch ignore
   

Answer 5

Older versions of Git used to allow pushes to the currently checked out branch of a non-bare repository.

It turns out this was a terribly confusing thing to allow. So they added the warning message you see, which is also terribly confusing.

If the first repository is just acting as a server then convert it to a bare repository as the other answers recommend and be done with it.

If however you need to have a shared branch between two repos that are both in use you can achieve it with the following setup

Repo1 - will act as the server and also be used for development

Repo2 - will be for development only

Setup Repo1 as follows

Create a branch to share work on.

git branch shared_branch

To be safe, you should also create a $(REPO).git/hooks/update that rejects any changes to anything other than shared_branch, because you don't want people mucking with your private branches.

repo1/.git/hooks  (GIT_DIR!)$ cat update
#!/bin/sh
refname="$1"
oldrev="$2"
newrev="$3"

if [ "${refname}" != "refs/heads/shared_branch" ]
then
   echo "You can only push changes to shared_branch, you cannot push to ${refname}"
   exit 1
fi

Now create a local branch in repo1 where you will do your actual work.

git checkout -b my_work --track shared_branch
Branch my_work set up to track local branch shared_branch.
Switched to a new branch 'my_work'

(may need to git config --global push.default upstream in order for git push to work)

Now you can create repo2 with

git clone path/to/repo1 repo2 
git checkout shared_branch 

At this point you have both repo1 and repo2 setup to work on local branches that push and pull from shared_branch in repo1, without needing to worry about that error message or having the working directory get out of sync in repo1. Whatever normal workflow you use should work.

Answer 6

You can simply convert your remote repository to bare repository (there is no working copy in the bare repository - the folder contains only the actual repository data).

Execute the following command in your remote repository folder:

git config --bool core.bare true

Then delete all the files except .git in that folder. And then you will be able to perform git push to the remote repository without any errors.