git-upload-pack: command not found, when cloning remote Git repo git-upload-pack: command not found, when cloning remote Git repo unix unix

git-upload-pack: command not found, when cloning remote Git repo


Make sure git-upload-pack is on the path from a non-login shell. (On my machine it's in /usr/bin).

To see what your path looks like on the remote machine from a non-login shell, try this:

ssh you@remotemachine echo \$PATH

(That works in Bash, Zsh, and tcsh, and probably other shells too.)

If the path it gives back doesn't include the directory that has git-upload-pack, you need to fix it by setting it in .bashrc (for Bash), .zshenv (for Zsh), .cshrc (for tcsh) or equivalent for your shell.

You will need to make this change on the remote machine.

If you're not sure which path you need to add to your remote PATH, you can find it with this command (you need to run this on the remote machine):

which git-upload-pack

On my machine that prints /usr/bin/git-upload-pack. So in this case, /usr/bin is the path you need to make sure is in your remote non-login shell PATH.


You can also use the "-u" option to specify the path. I find this helpful on machines where my .bashrc doesn't get sourced in non-interactive sessions. For example,

git clone -u /home/you/bin/git-upload-pack you@machine:code


Building on Brian's answer, the upload-pack path can be set permanently by running the following commands after cloning, which eliminates the need for --upload-pack on subsequent pull/fetch requests. Similarly, setting receive-pack eliminates the need for --receive-pack on push requests.

git config remote.origin.uploadpack /path/to/git-upload-packgit config remote.origin.receivepack /path/to/git-receive-pack

These two commands are equivalent to adding the following lines to a repo's .git/config.

[remote "origin"]    uploadpack = /path/to/git-upload-pack    receivepack = /path/to/git-receive-pack

Frequent users of clone -u may be interested in the following aliases. myclone should be self-explanatory. myfetch/mypull/mypush can be used on repos whose config hasn't been modified as described above by replacing git push with git mypush, and so on.

[alias]    myclone = clone --upload-pack /path/to/git-upload-pack    myfetch = fetch --upload-pack /path/to/git-upload-pack    mypull  = pull --upload-pack /path/to/git-upload-pack    mypush  = push --receive-pack /path/to/git-receive-pack