Having installed git and cloned a repo of OpenWRT-related scripts onto the device, everything seemed to be working fine. But then, after making a bunch of changes to the files:
# git pull origin master From ssh://275.257.257.1/git/OpenWRT * branch master -> FETCH_HEAD /usr/libexec/git-core/git-pull: exec: line 1: git-merge: not found
Not a happy thing to see. A bit of searching turned up https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/11930 (which suggests to me that this fairly significant problem is not well documented - and clearly not fixed). Their work-around works (although I admit I'm at a loss to fully understand it):
# ln -s $(which git) /usr/libexec/git-core/git # git pull origin master From ssh://275.257.257.1/git/OpenWRT * branch master -> FETCH_HEAD Already up-to-date.
Much better! Should that be unclear, the command to fix things is ln -s $(which git) /usr/libexec/git-core/git. The problem is apparently fixed in the Chaos Calmer release (currently at RC2).