git behind proxy: remote HEAD refers to nonexistent ref, unable to checkout

Question

When trying to clone ANY repository via https from github, we get:

git clone https://github.com/rails/rails.git
Cloning into rails...
remote HEAD refers to nonex         


        

Answer 1

A workaround found at the linked Ubuntu bug:

add the following to ~/.gitconfig or /etc/gitconfig

# Workaround for bug when using SSL and HTTP proxy (LP #940431)
[url "http://"]
 insteadOf = "https://"

No longer necessary starting with 12.04.