Notes on working with unimelb gitlab

This semester, I am doing the subject COMP30020 Computer systems which is one of the unimelb core subjects for computer science. As one of its lab tasks, working with the unimelb gitlab is pretty straightforward by following the spec. However, some details may require our attentions to avoid unnecessary scratches. You can find the lab spec from here.

One problem that I have encountered is as following. By the way, I am using Windows which means that situations may be different from unix-based systems.

After I created a local git project, added files to the local git repository and commit the changes, an error occured when I tried to push the changes.

What I did

I linked the remote git repository by

git remote add origin "https://gitlab.eng.unimelb.edu.au/xiandew/comp30023-lab-3"

It showed nothing on the command line when entered the line and seemed to be correct. But when I tried to push changes by

git push -u origin master

An error jumped out

fatal: unable to update url base from redirection:
  asked for: https://gitlab.eng.unimelb.edu.au/xiandew/comp30023-lab-2/info/refs?service=git-receive-pack
   redirect: https://gitlab.eng.unimelb.edu.au/users/sign_in

After I read the spec again, I found that the right way to link the remote gitlab repository should be

git remote add origin "https://gitlab.eng.unimelb.edu.au/xiandew/comp30023-lab-3.git"

Note .git at the end of line.

But when I tried to add the reomte repository again by the corrent code, It showed

fatal: remote origin already exists.

What I should have done

After consulting the tutor and browsing the discussion forum, I got the following solution.

If you have added a wrong remote link to a git repo, what you have to do first before adding the correct one is removing the wrong one first by

git remote remove origin

After that, add the correct remote. In my case,

git remote add origin "https://gitlab.eng.unimelb.edu.au/xiandew/comp30023-lab-3.git"

Then use git push -u origin master, the error should be fixed. Note that if it is the first time you connecting the gitlab, a window may jump out asking your gitlab username and password.

And after that, done with the problem!