Git Repair Permissions

Git Push Error: insufficient permission for adding an object to repository database

When you try to push to a shared git remote, you get the following error: insufficient permission for adding an object to repository database

After you have identified and fixed the underlying cause (see below), you’ll want to repair the permissions:

cd /path/to/repo.git
chgrp -R groupname .
chmod -R g+rwX .
find . -type d -exec chmod g+s '{}' +

Underlying Causes

The error could be caused by one of the following:

• The repository isn’t configured to be a shared repository (see core.sharedRepository in git help config). If the output of:

• git config core.sharedRepository
  

  is not group or true or 1 or some mask, try running:

  git config core.sharedRepository group
  

  and then re-run the recursive chmod and chgrp (see “Repair Permissions” above).

The operating system doesn’t interpret a setgid bit on directories as “all new files and subdirectories should inherit the group owner”.

When core.sharedRepository is true or group, Git relies on a feature of GNU operating systems (e.g., every Linux distribution) to ensure that newly created subdirectories are owned by the correct group (the group that all of the repository’s users are in). This feature is documented in the GNU coreutils documentation:

… [If] a directory’s set-group-ID bit is set, newly created subfiles inherit the same group as the directory, and newly created subdirectories inherit the set-group-ID bit of the parent directory. … [This mechanism lets] users share files more easily, by lessening the need to use chmodor chown to share new files.

However, not all operating systems have this feature (NetBSD is one example). For those operating systems, you should make sure that all of your Git users have the same default group. Alternatively, you can make the repository world-writable by running git config core.sharedRepository world (but be careful—this is less secure).

• The file system doesn’t support the setgid bit (e.g., FAT). ext2, ext3, ext4 all support the setgid bit. As far as I know, the file systems that don’t support the setgid bit also don’t support the concept of group ownership so all files and directories will be owned by the same group anyway (which group is a mount option). In this case, make sure all Git users are in the group that owns all the files in the file system.
• Not all of the Git users are in the same group that owns the repository directories. Make sure the group owner on the directories is correct and that all users are in that group.

Ref: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6448242/git-push-error-insufficient-permission-for-adding-an-object-to-repository-datab