git push - What are the consequences of using receive.denyCurrentBranch in Git?

Question

I have a Git repository. I have cloned the repository and can commit my local changes. When I push my changes to the server it works.

As soon as I create a branch, I checkout the branch, commit my work and then checkout the master branch. I then merge my local changes into the master branch. When I try to push to the server I get the following exception:

Welcome to Git (version 1.7.11-preview20120620)

Run 'git help git' to display the help index.
Run 'git help <command>' to display help for specific commands.

$ git push origin master:master
 Counting objects: 9, done.
 Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
 Compressing objects: 100% (7/7), done.
 Writing objects: 100% (8/8), 13.68 KiB, done.
 Total 8 (delta 2), reused 1 (delta 0)
 Unpacking objects: 100% (8/8), done.
 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: error: is denied, because it will make the index and work tree inconsistent
 remote: error: with what you pushed, and will require 'git reset --hard' to match
 remote: error: the work tree to HEAD.
 remote: error:
 remote: error: You can set 'receive.denyCurrentBranch' configuration variable to

 remote: error: 'ignore' or 'warn' in the remote repository to allow pushing into

 remote: error: its current branch; however, this is not recommended unless you
 remote: error: arranged to update its work tree to match what you pushed in some

 remote: error: other way.
 remote: error:
 remote: error: To squelch this message and still keep the default behaviour, set

 remote: error: 'receive.denyCurrentBranch' configuration variable to 'refuse'.
 To c:/jGit
 ! [remote rejected] master -> master (branch is currently checked out)
 error: failed to push some refs to 'c:/gitRepository'

One solution is to run the following command:

git config receive.denyCurrentBranch ignore

After this it works, but I would like to know why I need to use this option. Is this the only option? What are the consequences of doing this?

What I would really like to do is create branches, merge them into the master branch and then push my changes to the server.

Answer 1

The server where you are pushing to should use bare repository.

How to convert a normal Git repository to a bare one?