Could not create work tree dir 'example.com'.: Permission denied

45
votes

I have got a virtual private server with nginx Virtual Hosts setup (Server Blocks).

I've installed Git and got my ssh keys authenticated with GitHub.

I have my website running in

 ~/var/www/example.com/public_html/

I tried to run:

git clone [email protected]:example/example.co.uk.git

to pull my files on GitHub to the /public_html/ directory but I get the error:

fatal: could not create work tree dir 'example.com'.: Permission denied

I've followed this tutorial including the same issue he has mentioned on the page, but it still won't work: http://machiine.com/2013/pulling-a-git-repo-from-github-to-your-ubuntu-server/

I'm completely new to this, so your help would be much appreciated!

10
gitgithubnginxsshvps
Well, if it says "Permission denied", it basically means it. Are you sure that the the permissions are correct? Can you create directories in the directory where you attempt to clone the repository to? - Paweł Duda
When you say you're "completely new to this", new to what? Git? Virtual hosts? Unix directory permissions? User accounts? - Greg Hewgill
@PawełDuda Yeah, I have made a directory called 'test' in /public_html/ no problem. - David Ingledow
@GregHewgill I'm new to all of it really, I've just followed tutorials on DigitalOcean so far, but really stuck on this - David Ingledow
can you do a "ls -l" inside your work /var/www directory and paste the output into your post? - Paweł Duda

10 Answers

107
votes

I think you don't have your permissions set up correctly for /var/www Change the ownership of the folder.

sudo chown -R **yourusername** /var/www

8
votes

I was facing the same issue but it was not a permission issue.

When you are doing git clone it will create try to create replica of the respository structure.

When its trying to create the folder/directory with same name and path in your local os process is not allowing to do so and hence the error. There was "background" java process running in Task-manager which was accessing the resource of the directory(folder) and hence it was showing as permission denied for git operations. I have killed those process and that solved my problem. Cheers!!

8
votes

Turns out the problem was in the permission. I fix it with the following command

sudo chown -R $USER /var/www

Please make sure with the $USER variable. I tested and worked on Ubuntu Distro

7
votes

I was facing same issue then I read first few lines of this question and I realised that I was trying to run command at the root directory of my bash profile instead of CD/my work project folder. I switched back to my work folder and able to clone the project successfully

3
votes

You should logged in not as "root" user.

Or assign permission to your "current_user" to do this by using following command

sudo chown -R username.www-data /var/www

sudo chmod -R +rwx /var/www

3
votes
  1. Open your terminal.
  2. Run cd /
  3. Run sudo chown -R $(whoami):$(whoami) /var

Note: I tested it using ubuntu os

1
votes

Change ownership and permissions folder

sudo chown -R username.www-data /var/www

sudo chmod -R +rwx /var/www
0
votes

Most common reason for this error is that you don't have permission to create file in the current directory. Ensure you are in the right directory. try this on mac system to list the directory

ls, then cd right_folder_name

0
votes

Tested On Ubuntu 20, sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www

-1
votes

use this for all user

sudo chown -R $(whoami):$(whoami) /var/..