I can't clone git repository .../info/refs not valid

my issue was that the git client was too old

I'm using jenkins + git scm plugin to clone my git repo and I got the error

stderr: error: The requested URL returned error: 403 Forbidden while accessing https://github.com/owner/repo.git/info/refs

I opened the link with my error and I saw the message:

Please upgrade your git client. GitHub.com no longer supports git over dumb-http: https://github.com/blog/809-git-dumb-http-transport-to-be-turned-off-in-90-days

I have centos 6.5 and when I tried to update my git client I got from the yum repositories only the git client version 1.7.1

so in order to get the latest git client (for me it was 2.4.4) I had to use this guide

*there are many guides on the internet for this

and than I could clone my git repo successfully

The fatal error: XXX is this a git repository? can be related with multiple causes from server side, but if we are 100% sure that the repository is ok (i.e. you have cloned from other machines) then you are facing problems with the host resolution.

1. Check your proxy settings (as author advices).

   git config --global http.proxy http://proxyuser:[email protected]:8080 git config --global https.proxy https://proxyuser:[email protected]:8080 git config http.proxy http://proxyuser:[email protected]:8080 git config https.proxy https://proxyuser:[email protected]:8080

2. (This was my case) Set up host mapping within /etc/hosts or c:\windows...\etc\hosts (depending on your OS) to force the right host<->IP resolution. (Useful if your host is inside an VPN).

3. Check other possible problems (ignore ssl certs, check connection, etc...).

I got this problem when I was using older version (2.7.0) of git client. After upgrading to newer version (2.18.0) this gets resolved.