Once you have your own VPS or other Internet-available server, you can start hosting your own git repositories. The goal of this tutorial is for you to go from

    git clone github.com/...

to

    git clone YourLandChadDomainName.xyz/...

so you can cultivate your own homegrown, grass-fed code, rather than relying on a centralized proprietary service like GitHub.

## Installing git

You most likely already have it installed on your server, but if not, run:

    apt install git

We don't need any additional software, `git` itself ships with everything needed to host a remote repository!

## Creating bare repositories

For each repository you want to host, you will need to manually create what's called a "bare" repository on your server. These hold all the commits and any other git data needed for your repository, but without an expanded "index" in which you can just browse all the files of a certain commit in the file system.

These repositories need to be owned by the `git` user, and you should probably pick a directory where you will store them all. One sane choice is under `/srv/git/`, and we will use this as the example directory for the rest of the tutorial, but any other path will do as well.

### Become the git user and create the directory

If you're logged in to your server as root and have `git` installed, you can become the `git` user by executing

    su git

Now navigate to/create your desired directory, for example

    cd /srv
    mkdir git

### Create the repo

Now you can create the bare repository with

    git init --bare my-repo.git

By convention, bare repository names end with ".git".

Repeat the above command for any other repositories you want to host.

## Syncing local repositories with your server

### Set up SSH login for the git user

You will need to be able to login remotely via `ssh` as the `git` user we've used before. To do this, you will either need to set up a password for the `git` user by running `passwd git`, or copy your public SSH key from your local machine to `/home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys`. See the SSH keys instructional for details (just log in as `git` instead of `root`).

### Syncing a new repository with your server

If you've just created a new repository on your local machine, you will need to tell `git` where the remote repository is to be able to sync with it (using commands like `git push` or `git pull`). We do this by defining a "remote" for your repository.

A remote is just a named URL remembered in your repo's configuration. So we need a name and a URL. By convention, the "main" remote is called "origin". The URL has the format `user@host:path`, where:

- `user` is `git`, the `git` user we've already worked with before.
- `host` is your domain name. Alternatively you could even use your server's raw IP address.
- `path` is the absolute path to the repository on the server, in our example `/srv/git/my-repo.git`

So, to create a new remote, run:

    git remote add origin git@yourdomain.xyz:/srv/git/my-repo.git

Now you'll be able to run `git push origin master` to push your commits or `git pull origin` to pull from the remote.

### Syncing an existing repository

If you've already set up your local repository to sync with a service like GitHub it probably already has a remote called "origin". You can see your repo's remotes with:

    git remote -v

You can follow the above instructions, substituting an arbitrary other name other than "origin" to create a differently named remote, e.g.

    git remote add vps git@...

Now you'll be able to push/pull with `git push vps master` and `git pull vps`, respectively.

Or, to completely sever ties with your centralized git provider, first remove the original origin with: `git remote remove origin` and then follow the instructions as above.

## Contribution

- Martin Chrzanowski -- website, donate