Git, remote bare repositories, Dropbox backed

Question

This may have been asked so many times. But I may not understand the solution.

I'm following: http://git-scm.com/book/en/Git-on-the-Server-Setting-Up-the-Server

to create a Git server (remote bare repository). The host containing the Git server has got Dropbox installed. I'd like Dropbox to be my backup of the remote repository.

Here's my problem.

Dropbox files is located /opt/Dropbox. Repos are located /opt/Dropbox/repos. I've created a soft-link from /repos to /opt/Dropbox/repos.

I'd like to set origin to this remote repository.

git remote add origin git@gitserver:/repos/someproj.git
git push origin master

However, it seems the soft link, i.e. /repos, won't allow me to write to the bare repository. The error I receive is:

~/Documents/workspace/test-git:11:35$ git push origin master
fatal: '/repos/someproj.git' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
~/Documents/workspace/test-git:11:35$

Can anyone help with this scenario?

Answer 1

Supposedly a stupid question, but did you really do

$ cd /repos
$ mkdir someproj.git
$ git init --bare someproj.git

on the server before attempting your push operation?

I mean, Git won't auto-initialize repositories on push; it is only capable of pushing from one existing repository to another existing repository -- the latter might be completely empty but still it must be
a proper Git repository created by git init.