This is a tip for users who wish to use remotes which are based on OSX systems and have used macports to install some of the required utilities for git-annex to work.

The default behaviour of OSX's sshd is to have a "highly restricted" restricted environment. The defaults that it allows is

jtang@x00:~ $ ssh x00 echo \$PATH
/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

One solution is to enable PermitUserEnvironment yes in /etc/sshd_config and then in your own ~/.ssh/environment file you could add something like (the below is an example)

PATH=/Users/jtang/bin:/opt/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/Users/jtang/.cabal/bin:/opt/local/libexec/gnubin

If the above is not done, cloning from the OSX host will fail if git is not installed in /usr/bin (which it probably won't be).