git push origin branchname always pushes to master

Question

I've searched a bit, but can't seem to find the answer.

On two the boxes I have access to, when I do a "git push --dry-run origin mytestbranch", I get the following result:

To [email protected]:rien/test.git
 * [new branch]      test -> test

However, on my macbook, when I try the same command, I get the following result:

To [email protected]:rien/test.git
   417248a..cf7d564  test -> master

Only when I explicitly say push to the test origin branch (git push --dry-run origin test:test) does it work as expected.

How do I change it so that a basic git push --dry-run bb test will push to a newly created remote branch and not to master?

I created the test branch on both boxes with a git checkout -b test origin/master

Edited to add: - both branches have a git config push.default set to tracking.

I specifically want to know how to configure git so that when i type git push origin test that it acts the same as git push origin test:test

Answer 1

Check if there is a difference in push policy:

git config push.default

I suspect on the first box, the push is "simple"

git config push.default simple

Check also the upstream branch of the test branch on the second branch:

git config branch.test.merge

On the second branch, it might not be defined (hence the default value master)

You can set it explicitly:

git checkout test
git branch -u origin/test
# or
git push -u origin test:test

The OP rien adds in the comments:

After noticing I had a different version of git for those boxes, I looked around some more and found that if I set the push.default to simple or matching for the git version 1.9.3, the git push origin test works as expected.
It seems like the tracking push.default is deprecated for this version of git so it did not understand it.