github error: insufficient permission for adding an object to repository database

Question

I used to be able to do, from my App folder:

git add .
git commit -m "commit details"
git push

and the latest version of my app on my local machine would be backed up on in my master repo, on github.

Now, when I get as far as just the git add . command, I get:

mycompaq@ubuntu:~/myapp$ git add .
error: insufficient permission for adding an object to repository database .git/objects

error: app/views/reviews/update.js.erb: failed to insert into database
error: unable to index file app/views/reviews/update.js.erb
fatal: updating files failed
mycompaq@ubuntu:~/myapp$ 

I read in a message on Stackoverflow the way to overcome a similar problem was with:

chown -R user:user /project/directory

But seeing as I got in a whole load of trouble in the first place by running commands I wasn't sure about, I want to know if this is the command for me. What does it do? Can it be undone?

What should the exact syntax be, if the user is 'Christophe', and the folder where my Rails app is stored is called 'myapp'. I mean should it be

chown -R user:christophe /myapp/app/views/reviews/update.js.erb

Sorry for all the questions.

Answer 1

chown [ -f ] [ -h ] [ -R ] Owner [ :Group ] { File ... | Directory ... }

From the man page

The chown command changes the owner of the file specified by the File parameter to the user specified by the Owner parameter. The value of the Owner parameter can be a user ID or a login name found in the /etc/passwd file. Optionally, a group can also be specified. The value of the Group parameter can be a group ID or a group name found in the /etc/group file.

About the -R option

-R
Descends directories recursively, changing the ownership for each file. When a symbolic link is encountered and the link points to a directory, the ownership of that directory is changed but the directory is not further transversed.

So

chown -R user:christophe /myapp/app/views/reviews/update.js.erb

Would change the owner of the update.js.erb file to the user user in the group christophe, which is probably not what you want.

In your case changing the owner of the repo to yourself, i.e.

sudo chown -R christophe /path/to/your/local/repo

should suffice.

If you don't know your user name, you can find it out with the whoami command.

Answer 2

1. Make sure you're inside the repository where you're getting the error.

2. Get your username by typing

   whoami

3. Enter this command

sudo chown -R your_user_name .git/*

Answer 3

You can give access to all the files in .git/ folder. Just run the following command:

sudo chmod a+xrw .git/*

Answer 4

Simply I permitted my folders and its files with sudo command

sudo chmod -R 777 directory/