threads / discuss / 25648

'Unable to find remote helper'

Subject: 'Unable to find remote helper'

## tl;dr

4 messages between Nov 4, 2010 and Nov 8, 2010.

replies: 3people: 3as markdown or json

Philip Boulton· Nov 4, 2010, 21:59 UTC · lore

Been beating my head against this for a while:

Here's the problem I have:

$ git submodule init $ git submodule update Cloning into contrib/express... fatal: Unable to find remote helper for 'http' Clone of 'http://github.com/visionmedia/express.git' into submodule path 'contrib/express' failed

I have git version 1.7.3.1, built from source on FreeBSD 6.4 Prior to building I have curl and expat lib installed.

My git build commands are: ./configure gmake clean && gmake all gmake install

I've also tried the configure as follows: ./configure --with-curl=/usr/local --with-expat=/usr/local

in case it was looking elsewhere. The behaviour I see in this case is identical.

Philip B.

Jonathan Nieder· Nov 4, 2010, 22:40 UTC · re: Philip Boulton · lore

Re: 'Unable to find remote helper'

Hi Philip,

Philip Boulton wrote:

> My git build commands are:
> ./configure
> gmake clean && gmake all
> gmake install

The "gmake clean" undoes the effect of "./configure".

Hope that helps.

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
---

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index d3dcfb1..c693652 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -2229,7 +2229,7 @@ dist-doc:
 ### Cleaning rules
 
 distclean: clean
-	$(RM) configure
+	$(RM) configure config.mak.autogen
 
 clean:
 	$(RM) *.o block-sha1/*.o ppc/*.o compat/*.o compat/*/*.o xdiff/*.o vcs-svn/*.o \
@@ -2240,7 +2240,7 @@ clean:
 	$(RM) -r $(dep_dirs)
 	$(RM) *.spec *.pyc *.pyo */*.pyc */*.pyo common-cmds.h $(ETAGS_TARGET) tags cscope*
 	$(RM) -r autom4te.cache
-	$(RM) config.log config.mak.autogen config.mak.append config.status config.cache
+	$(RM) config.log config.mak.append config.status config.cache
 	$(RM) -r $(GIT_TARNAME) .doc-tmp-dir
 	$(RM) $(GIT_TARNAME).tar.gz git-core_$(GIT_VERSION)-*.tar.gz
 	$(RM) $(htmldocs).tar.gz $(manpages).tar.gz

Junio C Hamano· Nov 8, 2010, 18:54 UTC · re: Jonathan Nieder · lore

Re: 'Unable to find remote helper'

Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> The "gmake clean" undoes the effect of "./configure".
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>

You diagnosed the problem correctly, but I do not think the patch is correct. Why should the generated file *.autogen be kept around across "clean"?

I do understand why we keep "configure" around (it is common for everybody once it is generated), though.

Show 23 quoted lines

> ---
> diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
> index d3dcfb1..c693652 100644
> --- a/Makefile
> +++ b/Makefile
> @@ -2229,7 +2229,7 @@ dist-doc:
>  ### Cleaning rules
>  
>  distclean: clean
> -	$(RM) configure
> +	$(RM) configure config.mak.autogen
>  
>  clean:
>  	$(RM) *.o block-sha1/*.o ppc/*.o compat/*.o compat/*/*.o xdiff/*.o vcs-svn/*.o \
> @@ -2240,7 +2240,7 @@ clean:
>  	$(RM) -r $(dep_dirs)
>  	$(RM) *.spec *.pyc *.pyo */*.pyc */*.pyo common-cmds.h $(ETAGS_TARGET) tags cscope*
>  	$(RM) -r autom4te.cache
> -	$(RM) config.log config.mak.autogen config.mak.append config.status config.cache
> +	$(RM) config.log config.mak.append config.status config.cache
>  	$(RM) -r $(GIT_TARNAME) .doc-tmp-dir
>  	$(RM) $(GIT_TARNAME).tar.gz git-core_$(GIT_VERSION)-*.tar.gz
>  	$(RM) $(htmldocs).tar.gz $(manpages).tar.gz

Jonathan Nieder· Nov 8, 2010, 19:37 UTC · re: Junio C Hamano · lore

Re: 'Unable to find remote helper'

Junio C Hamano wrote:

> You diagnosed the problem correctly, but I do not think the patch is
> correct.  Why should the generated file *.autogen be kept around across
> "clean"?

Fair enough. The thought was that most autoconfiscated packages support

	./configure
	make clean
	make
	make install

since "make clean" does not remove the generated Makefile. But the patch was incomplete anyway, since it did not keep config.mak.append around.

> I do understand why we keep "configure" around (it is common for everybody
> once it is generated), though.

Hmm, isn't the usual scheme something like

 - "make clean" undoes the effect of "make"
 - "make distclean" removes all generated files that are not common
   to everyone
 - "make maintainer-clean" removes all generated files