How to set a central repository in Git

Background story

TODO ?

Getting started

In the folder you want your central repository run :

$ git clone --mirror git@github.com:host/path/to/repo.git   # Create a bare repository from which you can update the origin one.

In the folder where you will make a local copy or the central repository and start working, run this command :

$ git clone <username>@<server-adress>:/path/to/central/repo.git   # Clone a copy from the central repository.

Basically, this will make a ssh connection with the server and apply the git command which is git clone in that case.

And you're good to go !

Command on the bare repository

When you commit a lot of changed in your central repository and you're happy about the historic, you can run the following command:

$ git remote update

Setting up the client repository

Since you make an ssh connection every time you execute a git command, you will enter your server password a lot of times, aka

$ git push
<username>@<server-address>'s password:

If you're fine with that, don't bother with this section. But if you find it annoying you can solve it.

In order to avoid entering your password, you will have to generate a passphrase. But if you do not have one yet, this can be done using the following command.

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048

Follow the prompted instructions it's recommanded to use a passphrase and not leave it empty.

Once you've done it, you have to share it with the server. You can do that with :

$ ssh-copy-id <username>@<server-address>

You will have to enter your password in order to log in the server. You can then log in the server and check the authorized_keys to see if the new one is added :

$ ssh '<username>@<server-address>'
$ cat .ssh/authorized_keys

Use `ssh-agent` to store the passphrase for us

If you entered a passphrase in the ssh-keygen step, you should have the same problem that before. But instead of a password, it's now a passphrase that is required !

So we did not went far on our problem.

But luckily for us, there is a deamon that can helps us with passphrase : ssh-agent You can make sure your agent is running with (it will start it it if not already running) :

$ eval `ssh-agent -s`         # Start the ssh-agent
Agent pid 7716

You only have to run the following command :

$ ssh-add path/to/key

It will prompt you to enter your passphrase. And just like with the password, you're done ! 🎉

You can make a test and run ssh '<username>@<server-address>'' to test if it works. You should, in theory, not have to enter any passwords or passphrase !

Note: You can also run the below commands to make sure the ssh-agent has the right identities:

$ ssh-add -l
$ ssh-add -L

Remove a ssh key added

You might have add a ssh key that wasn't the one you wanted to use for that server. To fix your mistake, you can remove the desired key in the file known_hosts and authorized_keys with:

sed -i 'Xd' <filename>      # remove the `X` th line from the file.

Useful commands

You can check information about the remote url you can run the following command

git config --get remote.origin.url    # Return the remote url
git remote show origin                # Show the full output about remote stuff

You have a lot of control on the ssh-agent. You can for example specify the lifetime of identities it hold with

$ ssh-agent -t 1d   # the agent will remember identities for a day
$ ssh-add -t 1D     # the agent will remember identities for a day

Using Fork

This can be also be accomplished quite easily with Fork git client. All you have to do is : 1. File > Configure SSH Keys... 2. In the dropdown menu, select the keys you want to use for this repository. You can also generate a new one if you wish. 3. When making a server command, you will have a prompt to emter your passphrase. 4. Once enter, you should be able to make other server commands without worrying about it again.

Aknowledgements

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Last updated 5 years ago