When initializing a directory special remote with a relative path, the path is made absolute.

Using a relative path would work, until the user changed to some other
directory in the repo and tried to access the remote from there..

Remote/Directory.hs

@@ -68,13 +68,14 @@ directorySetup u c = do
 	-- verify configuration is sane
 	let dir = fromMaybe (error "Specify directory=") $
 		M.lookup "directory" c
-	liftIO $ unlessM (doesDirectoryExist dir) $
-		error $ "Directory does not exist: " ++ dir
+	absdir <- liftIO $ absPath dir
+	liftIO $ unlessM (doesDirectoryExist absdir) $
+		error $ "Directory does not exist: " ++ absdir
 	c' <- encryptionSetup c
 
 	-- The directory is stored in git config, not in this remote's
 	-- persistant state, so it can vary between hosts.
-	gitConfigSpecialRemote u c' "directory" dir
+	gitConfigSpecialRemote u c' "directory" absdir
 	return $ M.delete "directory" c'
 
 {- Locations to try to access a given Key in the Directory.

debian/changelog

@@ -10,6 +10,8 @@ git-annex (4.20130502) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
   * Avoid depending on regex-tdfa on mips, mipsel, and s390, where it fails
     to build.
   * direct: Fix a bug that could cause some files to be left in indirect mode.
+  * When initializing a directory special remote with a relative path,
+    the path is made absolute.
 
  -- Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>  Thu, 02 May 2013 20:39:19 -0400