Re: Simple git push --tags deleted all branches

On Thu, Nov 29 2018, Mateusz Loskot wrote:

On Thu, 29 Nov 2018 at 16:03, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

On Wed, Nov 28 2018, Mateusz Loskot wrote:

quoted

(using git version 2.19.2.windows.1)

I've just encountered one of those WTH moments.

I have a bare repository

core.git (BARE:master) $ git branch
  1.0
  2.0
* master

core.git (BARE:master) $ git tag
1.0.1651
1.0.766
2.0.1103
2.0.1200

I published the repo using: git push --all --follow-tags

This succeeded, but there seem to be no tags pushed, just branches.
So, I followed with

core.git (BARE:master) $ git push --tags
To XXX
 - [deleted]               1.0
 - [deleted]               2.0
 ! [remote rejected]       master (refusing to delete the current
branch: refs/heads/master)
error: failed to push some refs to 'XXX'

And, I've found out that all branches and tags have been
wiped in both, local repo and remote :)

I restored the repo and tried out

git push origin 1.0
git push origin --tags

and this time both succeeded, without wiping out any refs.

Could anyone help me to understand why remote-less

git push --tags

is/was so dangerous and unforgiving?!

Since nobody's replied yet, I can't see what's going on here from the
info you've provided. My guess is that you have something "mirror" set
on the remote.

Thank you for responding.

The git push --tags hugely surprised me, and here is genuine screenshot
https://twitter.com/mloskot/status/1068072285846859776

quoted

It seems you can't share the repo or its URL, but could you share the
scrubbed output of 'git config -l --show-origin' when run inside this
repository?

Here is complete output. I have not stripped the basics like aliases,
just in case.

Right, it's because you used --mirror, the important bit:

file:config     remote.origin.url=https://xxx.com/core-external-metadata.git
file:config     remote.origin.fetch=+refs/*:refs/*
file:config     remote.origin.mirror=true
file:config

I.e. you have cloned with the --mirror flag, this is what it's supposed
to do: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone#git-clone---mirror
https://git-scm.com/docs/git-fetch#git-fetch---prune

I.e. you push and git tries to mirror the refs you have locally to the
remote, including pruning stuff in the remote.

This is useful, but not what you wanted here. It's used for e.g. making
an up-to-date copy of a repo from server A to server B in HA setups
where you'd like to fail over to server B and get the same refs you had
on A.