So here goes a quick how-to (more of a note to self) on how I setup a remote git repo on one of the servers I have ssh access to.

1. SSH into your remote server (ssh uname@remoteserver)

2. Say, you are starting off setting up a git setup on this remote server. Create a directory by name say git (In the below example I put it in the home directory). All projects shall go into this directory.

uname@remoteserver$ mkdir ~/git

3. Now, create a project.git directory. If your project name is ledblink then do the following.

uname@remoteserver$ mkdir ~/git/ledblink.git

4. Initialise a bare git directory

uname@remoteserver$ cd ~/git/ledblink.git

uname@remoteserver/git/ledblink.git$ git – -bare init

5. Edit the description file to describe the project [Optional of-course]. Then edit the config file to enable reposharing by adding the line “sharedrepository = 1” under the [core] section.

6. Setup appropriate permissions. In the below example user only rights.

uname@remoteserver/git/ledblink.git$ chmod -R g=u .

uname@remoteserver/git/ledblink.git$ find . -type d | xargs chmod g+s

So all is done on the server side. Go back to your local machine.

7. Go to the folder you want to be version control or create a fresh directory where you will put your project files. Lets say localprojectrepo is the directory name. Change directory into the localprojectrepo and do the following.

uname@localhost/localprojectrepo$ git init

uname@localhost/localprojectrepo$ touch samplefile.txt

uname@localhost/localprojectrepo$ git add .

uname@localhost/localprojectrepo$ git commit -m “First commit”

Your local git repository is created. Now lets add the server as remote so that a push “syncs” the changes to the remote server.

uname@localhost/localprojectrepo$ git remote add origin uname@remoteserver:<pathto>/git/ledblink.git

uname@localhost/localprojectrepo$ git push origin master

Life is good! To take backups of your remote git repo, use your favourite means to copy the ~/git directory you create on the remote server. Thanks to good old friend Anurag for helping me through the details.