I'm getting a 'insufficient permission...' error when trying to push to my bare repo on my linux AWS server

Question

UPDATE (11/4): Just to test to see if it was indeed a permission issue on my linux box,

In the AWS Linux bare repo I did a 'sudo chmod -R 777 .' and was able to successfully complete a 'git push origin master' and I immediately did a 'sudo chmod -R 770 .' to change the permissions back.

I'm getting a 'insufficient permission...' error when trying to push to my bare repo on my linux AWS server.

  $ git push origin master
    Counting objects: 4, done.
    Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
    Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done.
    Writing objects: 100% (4/4), 622 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done.
    Total 4 (delta 3), reused 0 (delta 0)
    remote: error: insufficient permission for adding an object to repository database objects
    remote: fatal: failed to write object
    error: unpack failed: unpack-objects abnormal exit
    To awsDev:/AWSbareRepo
     ! [remote rejected] master -> master (unpacker error)
    error: failed to push some refs to 'awsDev:/AWSbareRepo'

I can pull, but not push. I've done a 'git ls-remote' and it comes back fine with the available references in the remote repository along with the associated commit IDs, so connectivity is not the issue.

I've also set the core.sharedRepository to true in the .config file:

[core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = true
        bare = true
        sharedRepository = true
~
~
~

On my AWS linux server on the bare repo directory I do a 'ls -la' and I receive the following:

$ ls -la
total 40
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root 4096 Nov  4 04:56 .
dr-xr-xr-x 28 root root 4096 Oct 14 02:06 ..
drwxrwsr-x  2 root root 4096 Apr 16  2015 branches
-rwxrwSr--  1 root root   91 Nov  4 04:56 config
-rw-rwSr--  1 root root   73 Apr 16  2015 description
-rw-rwSr--  1 root root   23 Apr 16  2015 HEAD
drwxrwsr-x  2 root root 4096 Apr 16  2015 hooks
drwxrwsr-x  2 root root 4096 Apr 16  2015 info
drwxrwsr-x 12 root root 4096 Oct 14 03:21 objects
drwxrwsr-x  4 root root 4096 Apr 16  2015 refs

I've ssh'd into my server and tried reading over Git Push Error: insufficient.. question, but not sure what group I need to give permission to? Do I need to add a new group on my AWS server that matches the group on my dev box?

Additional info: In case I wasn't clear, I'm attempting a 'git push origin master' from my local dev box to a AWS linux server. The push is from my local DEV box and when I try to push I am not SSH'd into my AWS Linux box.

Not sure if this is neccesary, but my AWS Linux server has IP rules, which prevent any SSH connectivity that does not originate from my IP address.

What are you using to access the repository? (What is the output of `cat .git/config` on your "local dev box") — serv-inc, Nov 04 '15 at 17:56
@user I don't understand your question. I'm trying to do a git push origin master to my AWS server from my local development box in a Linux bash in my local .git repo directory that I cloned from from my bare repo, which is located in my AWS Server — ConfusedDeer, Nov 04 '15 at 18:46
Does you local ("dev box") clone not have a `.git` directory inside? Does that not have a `config` file? Look at the `URL`, if it starts with `ssh`. — serv-inc, Nov 05 '15 at 07:54
you are welcome. Did this deviate in any way from the solution I provided? (as you said "resolve my permission issue by simply changing the file owner of the entire bare repo (on my AWS Linux box) from 'root' to 'ec2-user'.") Was my solution not clear enough? — serv-inc, Nov 06 '15 at 08:23

serv-inc · Answer 1 · 2015-11-04T17:53:57.843

2

(This answer is assuming you are using ssh+git to connect to the repository.)

Try typing id when you are logged into AWS per ssh. This will give you the user id of the user you log in as. When you have found that out, change the repository's permissions via (inside the repository)

chown -R user_id:user_id .

This will change ownership of all files in the repository to the user you log in as. (the :user_id changes group ownership as well)

Explanation: Your repository is owned by root. Unless you also log in as root, you will not have write permission.

edited Nov 04 '15 at 17:53

answered Nov 04 '15 at 12:14

serv-inc

35,772
9
166
188

But how can we have multiple users access the same bare repo? – ConfusedDeer Nov 05 '15 at 02:25
1

@ConfusedDeer: You could give them the same SSH key, for example. (For a user which only has permission to write to the repo). You could also create a group, as you proposed, and give that group write access. – serv-inc Nov 05 '15 at 07:28

ConfusedDeer · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-09T21:18:24.263

On my local repo (dev box) I did a vim ~/.ssh/config which returned:

Host awsDev
        HostName ec2-01-23-45-678.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com
        User ec2-user
        IdentityFile /Users/MyName/Desktop/AWSFolder/MyAWSPemKey.pem
~                                                                               
~                                                                               
~

From the local repo (Dev box) I did a $ git remote -v which returned:

origin  awsDev:/AWSbareRepo (fetch)
origin  awsDev:/AWSbareRepo (push)

At this point I realized I was connecting with 'ec2-user' and I had already pointed ssh to my .pem key and I could resolve my permission issue by simply changing the file owner of the entire bare repo (on my AWS Linux box) from 'root' to 'ec2-user'.

On my AWS Linux box in the bare repo directory did a $ chown -R ec2-user . then verified by doing a $ ls -la that the file owner did indeed change from 'root' to 'ec2-user'.

My next step was to update the permission for the bare repo so I did a

chmod -R 770

which changed my permission so the owner and users in the root group can read,write, and execute, but all others can't. I could have done 700, because ec2-user is the owner.

I once again did a $ls -la and verified permissions were correct.

After all this I was able to push and pull to my bare repo from both my local repo on y DEV box and from the repo in the AWS Linux box.

BTW: Nice little Linux permission calculator.

I'm getting a 'insufficient permission...' error when trying to push to my bare repo on my linux AWS server

In the AWS Linux bare repo I did a 'sudo chmod -R 777 .' and was able to successfully complete a 'git push origin master' and I immediately did a 'sudo chmod -R 770 .' to change the permissions back.

2 Answers2