git pull works remotely but not locally

Dear All

I have just set up my first git repository, and I'm trying things out before using it for real. To start with I'm using a centralised workflow with the main repos on a server, and workers checking work out and in. I'm using the smart http backend. I can contact the repos remotely via http or locally using the filesystem. However, git pull is not working in the local case. Please can someone offer help with (a) file permissions, and (b) difference between git pull, and git fetch; git merge (which works):

The basics seem to be working OK remotely: ie contacting the server over http:

         git clone http://username@12.34.56.78/git/projectname.git

What I mean is push and pull are working.

When working on the server itself I'm using

         git clone  /var/www/git/projectname.git

Most things seem to work the same, but git pull does not work:

         $ git pull
         fatal: cannot exec 'git-pull': Permission denied

fetch followed by merge seems to have the desired effect, e.g.:

    $ git fetch
    remote: Counting objects: 5, done.
    remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
    remote: Total 3 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
    Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), done.
     From /var/www/git/projectname
        6b40c1f..4ffb389  master     -> origin/master

    $ git merge origin
    Updating 6b40c1f..4ffb389
    Fast-forward
      notes.txt |    1 +
      1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

So, my questions are:

(a) Why isn't git pull working in the second case? What permissions am I missing? (b) Does git fetch; git merge origin do the same thing as git pull?

With thanks and best wishes

Ivan

Hi,

git-pull is simply a shell script (see git-pull.sh in git.git) which executes `git fetch` and `git merge-base` among other things. Maybe your git-pull file doesn't have execute permissions?

-- Ram

Dear Ram

Thank you for your comment.

git-pull is 755, and I can run /path/to/git-pull (I get an error and it crashes, but I have the permission).

Ivan

On 27/05/2010 15:20, Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:

Heya,

On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 16:37, Ivan Uemlianin <ivan@llaisdy.com> wrote:

That's not supposed to happen, what does it say? Also, is it possible you have an old git install lying around? It might be that it's partly using the old, and partly using the new install.

Dear All

Thanks for your comments.

On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Ivan Uemlianin<ivan@llaisdy.com>  wrote:

On 27/05/2010 15:47, Sverre Rabbelier wrote:

On 27/05/2010 15:50, Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:

The error is like this:

     $ /opt/libexec/git-core/git-pull
     /opt/libexec/git-core/git-pull: line 11: git-sh-setup: No such file 
or directory

I'm calling git-pull from my clone of the repos, so I don't have git-sh-setup in my current directory. That all seems fine: I imagine git-pull is not intended to be called directly.

The git is a recent install from source, on a Centos machine. There was no git previous.

As for reinstalling: unless something else is broken, I'm happy with "git fetch; git merge origin". However, I should like to understand why git pull is not working.

Best wishes

Ivan

On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 04:07:05PM +0100, Ivan Uemlianin wrote:

It's not. It expects the git wrapper to have set up the PATH to have /opt/libexec/git-core in it, which would then find git-sh-setup.

What happens if you run "git pull"? If you get an error, can you try to run "GIT_TRACE=1 git pull"? Git should then print out exactly what it is trying to exec that is failing.

-Peff

Dear Peff

Thanks for your comment.

Not very exciting:

$ GIT_TRACE=1 git pull trace: exec: 'git-pull' trace: run_command: 'git-pull' fatal: cannot exec 'git-pull': Permission denied

Best wishes

Ivan

On 27/05/2010 16:15, Jeff King wrote:

Please Reply-To-All, do not cull Cc list.

Am 5/27/2010 17:21, schrieb Ivan Uemlianin:

You get 'Permission denied' also if you cannot execute the shell that the first line of the script references. But that would be really odd...

-- Hannes

Yes, that would be odd.  I can run /bin/sh :)

On 27/05/2010 16:28, Johannes Sixt wrote:

On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 04:21:28PM +0100, Ivan Uemlianin wrote:

Then the next thing to try is probably (assuming you are running Linux):

  strace -f -e execve git pull

Though I suspect we may just see:

  execve("/opt/libexec/git-core/git-core/git-pull", ...) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)

which doesn't help much. I just want to be sure that is the source of the problem.

-Peff

On 27/05/2010 16:38, Jeff King wrote:

Well, kind of: it's CentOS, which I'm finding quite recalcitrant (e.g. I had to install strace).

No, the output is interesting. The permissions denied is from the erroneous /root install (see separate email):

     [pid  3485] execve("/root/libexec/git-core/git-pull", ["git-pull"], 
[/* 18 vars */]) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)

It looks in /opt/bin, but not /opt/libexec.

It could be a botched git install or it could be a botched PATH --- I have had to fiddle about with it a bit. For example, /opt/libexec is not on my PATH ... In fact my PATH *is* botched:

     $ $PATH
     bash: /opt/bin:<snip/>:/usr/bin:/root/bin: No such file or directory

Those last two items don't look good at all.  And:

     $ PATH=/opt/libexec/git-core/:$PATH
     $ git pull
     remote: Counting objects: 8, done.
     ...
      1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

Working!

So:
- git itself is probably OK
- I have a botched PATH, which I should fix asap

Does git expect certain paths to be on a user's PATH? If so perhaps that is all that is wrong.

Best wishes

Ivan

On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 05:21:50PM +0100, Ivan Uemlianin wrote:

 
That looks like you are either running wrong git binary (one in /root/bin?)
or the git installation is busted.

No, the git libexec directory SHOULD NOT be in PATH (git will add it there when needed).

-Ilari

Hi,

You seem to be missing git-sh-setup (called `git-sh-setup.sh` in git.git), another shell script that's called by every other shell script in Git.

A lot of other things won't work. `git rebase -i` for example is another shell script `git-rebase--interactive.sh`.

-- Ram

On 27/05/2010 16:15, Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:

... but git-sh-setup is in /opt/libexec/git-core/ ...

You're right!

Is there something I need to set in my global .gitconfig?

If it's a botched install I need to know why, or it will just be botched the same way when I reinstall. I only remember two things about the install, ...

- I did configure with prefix=/opt
- odd thing: nothing was installed into /opt: it all went into /root (I 
might have been root for the whole process, which I know is bad).  I 
just cp'd everything over to /opt, and everything worked OK (until now).

Any ideas? I'm happy to reinstall once I know what went wrong. The git I installed on my mac is really working fine.

Best wishes

Ivan

On Donnerstag, 27. Mai 2010, Ivan Uemlianin wrote:

My guess is:

- You built as root.
- I don't know what went wrong with the command that involved prefix=/opt.
- But when you finally build using 'make', it picked the default prefix, which 
is /root when you are root.
- This hard-codes the libexec path to /root/libexec/git-core.
- Even after you copy the stuff to /opt, git looks in /root/libexec/...
- As a normal user you do not have access to /root, ergo, Permission denied.

Rebuild as normal user with

   make prefix=/opt

and install as root with

   make prefix=/opt install

(Yes, prefix must be given also for 'make install'.)

-- Hannes

Dear Hannes

Yes, you have pinpointed it. I installed as root, but I thought I had followed the other instructions (using ./configure) and did

    # make configure
    # ./configure --prefix=/opt
    # make
    # make install

In any case, I have deleted everything and reinstalled properly. Now git pull is working as it should.

Thank you all for your patience and help.

Best wishes

Ivan

On 27/05/2010 20:53, Johannes Sixt wrote:

Hi,

On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Ivan Uemlianin <ivan@llaisdy.com> wrote:

Your error comes from run-command.c:290 - Maybe it tries to execute git-pull and (wrongly) reports that it wasn't able to execute it? What error (and return status) do you get when you execute the script yourself? It looks like there's something wrong with your installation of Git. Perhaps you'd like to re-install?

-- Ram