I hear all that, but --bare is necessary in this case because git (by default) won't let you push to a non-bare filesystem branch: ~/temp/a:master $ git p

I hear all that, but --bare is necessary in this case because git (by default) won't let you push to a non-bare filesystem branch: ~/temp/a:master $ git push backup Enumerating objects: 3, done. Counting objects: 100% (3/3), done. Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 212 bytes | 212.00 KiB/s, done. Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 remote: error: refusing to update checked out branch: refs/heads/master remote: error: By default, updating the current branch in a non-bare repository remote: is denied, because it will make the index and work tree inconsistent remote: with what you pushed, and will require 'git reset --hard' to match remote: the work tree to HEAD. ... To ../b ! [remote rejected] master -> master (branch is currently checked out) error: failed to push some refs to '../b'