So you installed git and ikiwiki on your shared server and created your ikiwiki and repositories, but when you went to create a local working clone of the repository by running:

git clone <server-alias>:/path/to/<repository-name>.git

did you get the following error, like I did?

Cloning into <repository-name>... jailshell: git-upload-pack: command not found fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

Don't worry, it's not a difficult problem to solve, it's just that the PATH variable that points to where your local git-install programs are is not being read for non-interactive shell. To test what the non-interactive PATH variable for your account on the server is, run the following from your local machine:

ssh <server-alias> echo \$PATH

If the local git install path you set in .bashrc is not present (eg. /home//bin), the server is ignoring the path directive in this file (and presumably those from places like ~/.ssh/environment too).

To resolve this, explicitly set the path for git-upload-pack as part of the clone command:

git clone -u /path/to/git-upload-pack <server-alias>:/path/to/<repository>.git

This is only good for the initial clone however; to remove the requirement to set the path for git-upload-path/git-receive-pack every time you do a pull from/push to the repository respectively, set the path for each in the newly created, local git repository's config.

git config remote.<remote-name>.uploadpack /path/to/git-upload-pack
git config remote.<remote-name>.receivepack /path/to/git-receive-pack

Source: stackoverflow.com/questions/225291

If you're still typing in the full <username>@<server.url> with ssh and scp commands instead of ssh <server-alias>, do yourself a favour and setup a server alias in your ~/.ssh/config directory

Host <server-alias> HostName <server.url> User <username> Port <port number>

If you're still using password logins with ssh and scp, look into changing to a key based passwordless login — either with or without a key password as appropriate.