Git push error '[remote rejected] master -> master (branch is currently checked out)'

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                                                 [email protected]'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://[email protected]/media/LINUXDATA/working ! [remote rejected] master -> master (branch is currently checked out) error: failed to push some refs to 'git+ssh://[email protected]/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

The error message error: refusing to update checked out branch: refs/heads/master is emitted by the remote repository and it means you're trying to push code to remote non-bare repository that has different code currently checked out in the working directory. The best way to avoid this problem is to push to bare repositories only - this problem cannot ever happen with a bare repository.

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.