Unknown option git config --local reported by Jenkins

Question

I'm setting up CI for a C# project hosted on GitHub in a private repo.
Git is installed on master CentOS machine, MSBuild on slave windows.

I've created account on GitHub, and added it to my private repo.
When I'm setting up source control on Jenkins, I've entered URL (as https://github.com/.../repo.git) and entered credentials with the new account.

Jenkins reports:

Failed to connect to repository : Command "git config --local credential.helper store --file=/tmp/git2956041026506359040.credentials" returned status code 129:
stdout: 
stderr: error: unknown option `local'
usage: git config [options]

Config file location
    --global              use global config file
    --system              use system config file
    -f, --file <FILE>     use given config file

Action
    --get                 get value: name [value-regex]
    --get-all             get all values: key [value-regex]
    --get-regexp          get values for regexp: name-regex [value-regex]
    --replace-all         replace all matching variables: name value [value_regex]
    --add                 adds a new variable: name value
    --unset               removes a variable: name [value-regex]
    --unset-all           removes all matches: name [value-regex]
    --rename-section      rename section: old-name new-name
    --remove-section      remove a section: name
    -l, --list            list all
    -e, --edit            opens an editor
    --get-color <slot>    find the color configured: [default]
    --get-colorbool <slot>
                          find the color setting: [stdout-is-tty]

Type
    --bool                value is "true" or "false"
    --int                 value is decimal number
    --bool-or-int         value is --bool or --int
    --path                value is a path (file or directory name)

Other
    -z, --null            terminate values with NUL byte

If I log into master and try the same command on root console I get the same error, --local is not an option for git config.

Answer 1

The problem was that Git was outdated, and version that comes with CentOS didn't support the --local option for git config.

Updating git to version 1.7.12 solved the issue.

Answer 2

It seems that jekins uses the default git under /usr/bin. Check your /usr/bin/git and confirm that it has the --local option.

Answer 3

Now (2017), not only --local is a valid option for git config (since several years ago), its error message will be more precise.

See commit 3d7dd2d (21 May 2017) by Ramsay Jones (``).
See commit 25cd291, commit 588a538, commit d819374 (13 May 2017) by Jeff King (peff).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 220c6a7, 29 May 2017)}

config: complain about --local outside of a git repo

The "--local" option instructs git-config to read or modify the repository-level config. This doesn't make any sense if you're not actually in a repository.

Older versions of Git would blindly try to read or write ".git/config".
For reading, this would result in a quiet failure, since there was no config to read (and thus no matching config value).
Writing would generally fail noisily, since ".git" was unlikely to exist.
But since b1ef400 (setup_git_env: avoid blind fall-back to ".git", 2016-10-20, Git 2.13), we catch this in the call to git_pathdup() and die with an assertion.

Dying is the right thing to do, but we should catch the problem early and give a more human-friendly error message.

Before:

vonc@xxC:\Users\vonc\prog\xxx
> git config --local -l
fatal: BUG: setup_git_env called without repository

After (Git 2.14, Q3 2017)

vonc@xxC:\Users\vonc\prog\xxx
> git config --local -l
fatal: BUG: --local can only be used inside a git repository

---

And this applies to git config --worktree too, with Git 2.29 (Q4 2020)

See commit 378fe5f from Matheus Tavares (matheustavares)
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 80cacae, 19 Sep 2020)}

config: complain about --worktree outside of a git repo

Running git config --worktree outside of a git repository hits a BUG() when trying to enumerate the worktrees.
Let's catch this error earlier and die() with a friendlier message.

Instead of just --local can only be used inside a git repository, you will now see:

--worktree can only be used inside a git repository