git push fails: `refusing to update checked out branch: refs/heads/master`

I want to store my local modifications to JBoss config in git. For this, I have set up the following structure:

lrwxrwxrwx  1 jboss jboss        19 Jan 24 11:53 current -> jboss-as-7.1.0.CR1b
drwxr-xr-x 11 jboss jboss      4096 Jan 24 12:13 jboss-as-7.1.0.CR1b
-rw-r--r--  1 jboss jboss 108211143 Jan 23 16:02 jboss-as-7.1.0.CR1b.tar.gz
drwxr-xr-x  6 jboss jboss      4096 Jan 24 11:36 local

local is the git repository which shall be the "origin". The idea is that I want to be able to easily update my JBoss distribution once an update is available. I want to store all local modifications to the distributed JBoss package in git.

So, currently I do this:

jboss@tpl0:~/jboss-as-7.1.0.CR1b$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /opt/jboss/jboss-as-7.1.0.CR1b/.git/
jboss@tpl0:~/jboss-as-7.1.0.CR1b$ git remote add origin ../local/   
jboss@tpl0:~/jboss-as-7.1.0.CR1b$ git pull origin master 
From ../local
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD

So far so good, all my local modifications are there where I want them.

However, once I have local modifications and want to bush them back to the local repository, I get an error:

jboss@tpl0:~/jboss-as-7.1.0.CR1b$ vim standalone/configuration/standalone.xml   
jboss@tpl0:~/jboss-as-7.1.0.CR1b$ git commit -a -m "renamed database to project2_core,   to distinguish from other projects"
[master 3e54f34] renamed database to project2_core, to distinguish from other projects
Committer: jboss <jboss@tpl0.(none)>
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

jboss@tpl0:~/jboss-as-7.1.0.CR1b$ git push origin master 
Counting objects: 9, done.
Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done.
Writing objects: 100% (5/5), 447 bytes, done.
Total 5 (delta 3), reused 0 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: error: refusing to update checked out branch: refs/heads/master
remote: error: By default, updating the current branch in a non-bare repository
remote: error: is denied, because it will make the index and work tree inconsistent
remote: error: with what you pushed, and will require 'git reset --hard' to match
remote: error: the work tree to HEAD.
remote: error: 
remote: error: You can set 'receive.denyCurrentBranch' configuration variable t
remote: error: 'ignore' or 'warn' in the remote repository to allow pushing int
remote: error: its current branch; however, this is not recommended unless you
remote: error: arranged to update its work tree to match what you pushed in som
remote: error: other way.
remote: error: 
remote: error: To squelch this message and still keep the default behaviour, se
remote: error: 'receive.denyCurrentBranch' configuration variable to 'refuse'.
To ../local/
 ! [remote rejected] master -> master (branch is currently checked out)
error: failed to push some refs to '../local/'

What can I do about this? Any help is greatly appreciated!

EDIT

Here's what I did, which solved the problem:

cd ~/current
git init
vim .gitignore                   # set up a basic .gitignore file
git add .gitignore
git commit -a -m "initial commit"
cd ~/local
git clone ~/current
git branch -m master current     # rename master branch to 'current'
git branch repo
git checkout repo

Now, the branch current in directory ~/local is always up-to-date, but it's not cheked out, so that i can push into it.

Pushing is meant for bare repos. For non-bare repos you should pull into them.

If you want to force this through anyway, you can do as the error message states and set receive.denyCurrentBranch to ignore. SSH to the location of the repo you are pushing to and run:

git config receive.denyCurrentBranch ignore

The master branch at remote site is checked out. If you have access to remote repository, checkout any other branch and then push from your repository.

Create the origin (local) repository as a bare repository (ie. git init --bare), or checkout a branch in there which is not master.

OR,

when you initialize your remote project, using

git init --bare

I managed to get round this by pulling from 'local' in 'current' rather than pushing to 'current' from 'local'.

I know this is quite an old question, but if you go with git init --bare, watch out for 'GIT_DIR=.' which will be set for a bare repo hook if using hooks to checkout the repo after pushing. Use 'export GIT_DIR=.git' in your hook routine to make it recognise the repo you are pulling into....