Git: “please tell me who you are” error

Question

I have app servers that I bootstrap together using Chef + some ad-hoc bash scripts. The problem is, when I want to run an update on one of these app servers, I get:

Answer 1

Instead of doing a git pull, you can do:

git fetch
git reset --hard origin/master

Neither of those require you to configure your git user name / email.

This will destroy any uncommitted local changes / commits, and will leave your HEAD pointing to a commit (not a branch). But neither of those should be a problem for an app server since you shouldn't be making local changes or committing to that repository.