How to add a local repo and treat it as a remote repo

If your goal is to keep a local copy of the repository for easy backup or for sticking onto an external drive or sharing via cloud storage (Dropbox, etc) you may want to use a bare repository. This allows you to create a copy of the repository without a working directory, optimized for sharing.

For example:

$ git init --bare ~/repos/myproject.git
$ cd /path/to/existing/repo
$ git remote add origin ~/repos/myproject.git
$ git push origin master

Similarly you can clone as if this were a remote repo:

$ git clone ~/repos/myproject.git

You have your arguments to the remote add command reversed:

git remote add <NAME> <PATH>

So:

git remote add bak /home/sas/dev/apps/smx/repo/bak/ontologybackend/.git

See git remote --help for more information.