Git: Receiving "fatal: Not a git repository" when attempting to remote add a Git repo
I am introducing myself to Git by following this tutorial:
- getting jekyll running on nearlyfreespeech.net
Everything works fine up until the part where the repo is added to my local machine:
git remote add nfsn ssh://USERNAME@NFSNSERVER/home/private/git/REPONAME.git
(After replacing USERNAME, NFSNSERVER, and REPONAME with the correct names) I receive the following error:
fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
Can you help me get past this step?
Did you init a local Git repository, into which this remote is supposed to be added?
Does your local directory have a .git folder?
Try git init.
You'll get this error if you try to use a Git command when your current working directory is not within a Git repository. That is because, by default, Git will look for a .git repository directory (inside of the project root?), as pointed out by my answer to "Git won't show log unless I am in the project directory":
According to the official Linux Kernel Git documentation,
GIT_DIRis [an environment variable] set to look for a.gitdirectory (in the current working directory?) by default:If the
GIT_DIRenvironment variable is set then it specifies a path to use instead of the default.gitfor the base of the repository.
You'll either need to cd into the repository/working copy, or you didn't initialize or clone a repository in the first place, in which case you need to initialize a repo in the directory where you want to place the repo:
git init
or clone a repository
git clone <remote-url>
cd <repository>
My problem was that for some hiccups with my OS any command on my local repository ended with "fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git", with fsck command included.
The problem was empty HEAD file.
I was able to find actual branch name I've worked on in .git/refs/heads and then I did this:
echo 'ref: refs/heads/ML_#94_FILTER_TYPES_AND_SPECIAL_CHARS' > .git/HEAD
It worked.