Last week…

Jason

I started using Unfuddle for [redacted]

I like it so far.

Trey

it’s a good service

I’m going to move all my private repos there

Jason

if you just want online repo storage, why not just use your Slice?

Trey

I should do that

Jason

It’s super easy

Trey

yeah?

you should blog it

Jason

ok.

So here is how to get your remote git up and go

Setting up a remote Git repo and connecting via ssh in a nutshell:

First, we install git on the server. I’m using aptitude on Ubuntu for this. Next, we have two options: we can just set up a bare git repo and push to it using an existing user; or, if we want to be able to safely share the repo with others, we can set up a git user. After setting up the git user, we create the bare git repo, chown it to the git user, and push to it from our local machine.

On your slice…

1. Install Git

   sudo aptitude git-core

2. Add the Git User (If you want to use an existing user, skip to step #7.)

   sudo adduser git

3. Set up ssh key (standard procedure)

   su - git mkdir .ssh chmod 700 .ssh nano -w ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

   (Yes, I use nano. What of it?)

   [ paste in public key and save the file ]

4. Exit su

   exit

5. Give the Git User a special shell that only allows git commands

   sudo nano /etc/passwd

   [ Change git’s shell from /bin/sh to /usr/bin/git-shell ]

   [ Save /etc/passwd ]

6. If you have set up your sshd_config to only allow specific users, you’ll need to add git

   sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

   [ Add git to AllowUsers (near the end of the file), e.g.: AllowUsers jason git ]

7. Reload sshd

   sudo /etc/init.d/ssh reload

8. Create a dir for your repos

   sudo mkdir /var/git

   sudo chown `whoami` /var/git

9. Create your first bare repo (--bare means no working dir; i.e. just the contents of .git)

   cd /var/git mkdir test.git cd test.git git --bare init sudo chown -R git .

Back on your local machine…

1. Go to there

   cd /path/to/test

2. Add your remote (just as if it were somewhere like Github)

   git remote add origin ssh://git@slice1.example.com/var/git/test.git

3. Push all your branches

   git push --all

N.B.

• If you use something other than Ubuntu and aptitude, your git-shell may be located somewhere else. Try which git-shell to find it.
• If you’ve changed your ssh port to something other than 22, you’ll need to do something like this: git remote add origin ssh://git@slice1.example.com:8822/var/git/test.git
• To allow others to contribute, put their public key in /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys, but remember, you can’t log in as git; so, you’ll need to edit it as root with sudo.

Questions? Comments? Recommendations? Let me know.