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.

I found and used (successfully) this fix:

# Fix it with symlinks in /usr/bin
$ cd /usr/bin/
$ sudo ln -s /[path/to/git]/bin/git* .

Thanks to Paul Johnston.

Mac OS X and some other Unixes at least have the user path compiled into sshd for security reasons so those of us that install git as /usr/local/git/{bin,lib,...} can run into trouble as the git executables are not in the precompiled path. To override this I prefer to edit my /etc/sshd_config changing:

#PermitUserEnvironment no

to

PermitUserEnvironment yes

and then create ~/.ssh/environment files as needed. My git users have the following in their ~/.ssh/environment file:

PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/git/bin

Note variable expansion does not occur when the ~/.ssh/environment file is read so:

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/git/bin

will not work.

Matt's solution didn't work for me on OS X, but Paul's did.

The short version from Paul's link is:

Created /usr/local/bin/ssh_session with the following text:

#!/bin/bash
export SSH_SESSION=1
if [ -z "$SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND" ] ; then
    export SSH_LOGIN=1
    exec login -fp "$USER"
else
    export SSH_LOGIN=
    [ -r /etc/profile ] && source /etc/profile
    [ -r ~/.profile ] && source ~/.profile
    eval exec "$SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND"
fi

Execute:

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/ssh_session

Add the following to /etc/sshd_config:

ForceCommand /usr/local/bin/ssh_session

For bash, it needs to be put into .bashrc not .bash_profile (.bash_profile is also only for login shells).

I got these errors with the MsysGit version.

After following all advice I could find here and elsewhere, I ended up:

installing the Cygwin version of Git

on the server (Win XP with Cygwin SSHD), this finally fixed it.

I still use the MsysGit version client side

..in fact, its the only way it works for me, since I get POSIX errors with the Cygwin Git pull from that same sshd server

I suspect some work is still needed this side of Git use.. (ssh+ease of pull/push in Windows)

Like Johan pointed out many times its .bashrc that's needed:

ln -s .bash_profile .bashrc

My case is on Win 10 with GIT bash and I don't have a GIT under standard location. Instead I have git under /app/local/bin. I used the commands provided by @Garrett but need to change the path to start with double /:

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

Otherwise the GIT will add your Windows GIT path in front.

For zsh you need to put it in this file: ~/.zshenv

For example, on OS X using the git-core package from MacPorts:

$ echo 'export PATH=/opt/local/sbin:/opt/local/bin:$PATH' > ~/.zshenv

It may be as simple as installing git on the remote host (like it was in my case).

sudo apt-get install git

Or equivalent for other package management systems.

If you're using GitHub Enterprise, make sure the repo is public, not internal. There may be other ways to solve this for an internal repo, but this was the quickest way to solve the problem without involving more time and people.