How do I clone a local git folder(repo) to a remote server

Question

I see this question asked many times. I've tried every answer.

• this one doesn't work .
• this one doesn't work .
• this one doesn't work
• this one is incomplete and therefore doesn't work
• this one creates a bundle which would need twice the space on both sides . not a good solution for a large repo

Not one of them has actually worked. Maybe something changed in git since they were written?

To be clear: I have a local checkout, I want a similar checkout on remote. I know I can use scp -r . ssh://remote/somefolder scp -r . ssh://remote/somefolder but scp is extremely slow so I'd prefer to do it with git.

Some answers said

• on remote

   $ mkdir somefolder $ cd somefolder $ git init 

• on local

   $ git push --mirror ssh://remote/somefolder remote: error: refusing to update checked out branch: refs/heads/master remote: error: By default, updating the current branch in a non-bare repository remote: error: is denied, because it will make the index and work tree inconsistent remote: error: with what you pushed, and will require 'git reset --hard' to match remote: error: the work tree to HEAD. remote: error: remote: error: You can set 'receive.denyCurrentBranch' configuration variable to remote: error: 'ignore' or 'warn' in the remote repository to allow pushing into remote: error: its current branch; however, this is not recommended unless you remote: error: arranged to update its work tree to match what you pushed in some remote: error: other way. remote: error: remote: error: To squelch this message and still keep the default behaviour, set remote: error: 'receive.denyCurrentBranch' configuration variable to 'refuse'. 

Other answers said

• on remote

   $ mkdir somefolder $ cd somefolder $ git init --bare 

This fails. Now somefolder is full of git files instead of having a .git folder

Okay let's guess

• on remote

   $ mkdir somefolder $ cd somefolder $ git init --bare .git 

Hey I have a .git folder inside somefolder

Let's push

• on local

   $ git push --mirror ssh://remote/somefolder/ 

• on remote

   $ cd somefolder $ git status fatal: This operation must be run in a work tree 

The question I want answered is, how do I push a local repo to a remote server such that on the remote server it acts exactly the same as if I had cloned the repo.

In other words if I could do this

• on remote

  git clone ssh://local/somefolder/

I can't do that though since local doesn't have public ip address serving ssh. So instead I want to push it. When it's done remote should have

somefolder
|
+- .git

and the master branch should be checked out, just like it would if I had cloned.

Answer 1

How about this:

on remote:

$ mkdir somefolder
$ cd somefolder
$ git init --bare

on local

$ git push ssh://remote/somefolder/

on remote again, only first time

$ mkdir someotherfolder
$ cd someotherfolder
$ git clone somefolder .

on remote again, subsequent calls $git pull

I think you could do this automatically, on subsequent calls with hooks

Answer 2

What if you do exactly what it says in the error message:

remote: error: You can set 'receive.denyCurrentBranch' configuration variable to
remote: error: 'ignore' or 'warn' in the remote repository to allow pushing into
remote: error: its current branch; however, this is not recommended unless you
remote: error: arranged to update its work tree to match what you pushed in some
remote: error: other way.

Run this in the remote, non-bare repository:

git config receive.denyCurrentBranch ignore

The warning is there for a reason, though; this will interact poorly with edits to the working tree on remote. If you do this, never edit files directly on the remote without committing them!