Git Fetch fails to work on bare repo, but git pull works on normal repo
git
Solution
Your fetch hasn't updated the `master` branch, only `FETCH_HEAD` (see "What does `FETCH_HEAD` in Git mean?").
As mentioned in "how do I pull to a bare repository?", you should do a:
git fetch origin master:master
Or, for all the branches:
git fetch origin +refs/heads/*:refs/heads/*
Colin D Bennett added:
If you want to fetch these on a regular basis, you should consider:
git config remote.origin.fetch +refs/heads/*:refs/heads/*
which will allow you to type `git fetch` to sync your branches with the remote. Note that this make sense only in a bare repository where local branches are not supposed to be edited.
Problem
First, the big picture: I'm trying to write a git post-receive script for a Redmine / Gitolite server I'm running. As per various recommendations, I'm creating a bare and local repository for Redmine to read from, and I'm setting up a post-receive script on Gitolite to push changes into the Redmine repo. However, I'm very noobish with Git, so I'm unable to even do a simple task here >_<. I think if I figure this out, I should be able to write the above script. After setting up my test repo, I've created two repos as a test. (The "Central Repo" is a Gitolite repository at git@localhost:testing) ``` cd /tmp mkdir /tmp/test $ git clone git@localhost:testing $ git clone git@localhost:testing testing2 $ git clone git@localhost:testing --bare ``` Now when I run ls: ``` $ ls testing testing2 testing.git ``` Now, I change the test file inside of the testing2, and then push the changes to the central repo. ``` $ cd testing2 $ echo 'testline' >> test && git commit --allow-empty-message -a -m '' && git push ``` As expected, if I run "git pull" on the "testing" folder, everything works as expected. ``` $ cd testing $ git pull remote: Counting objects: 5, done. remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0) Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), done. From localhost:testing 3242dba..a1ca5ba master -> origin/master Updating 3242dba..a1ca5ba Fast-forward test | 1 + 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) $ diff ./test ../testing2/test $ ``` As shown with the last "diff", the "testing" directory and "testing2" directory work exactly as expected. The "git pull" command synchronizes the two directories. However, if I cd into testing.git (aka: the bare repo), a git fetch / git reset --soft fails to update the bare repo to the latest version. ``` $ ls branches config description HEAD hooks info objects packed-refs refs $ git fetch remote: Counting objects: 5, done. remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0) Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), done. From localhost:testing * branch HEAD -> FETCH_HEAD $ git reset --soft $ cd .. $ git clone ./testing.git testing3 Cloning into testing3... done. $ cd testing3 $ diff test ../testing2/test 5a6 > testline ``` As you can see from the last example, the bare repository failed to get updated, and there is somehow a difference between the two files. What did I do wrong? Thanks in advance