Installing a Git Server on Ubuntu 11.10

Note: This will not work with Ubuntu 12.04, as the support for gitosis is removed in this release. See http://askubuntu.com/questions/126097/ubuntu-12-04-gitosis-no-longer-available for details. For migration from gitosis to gitolite, see this blog post: http://www.sureshpw.com/2012/05/migrating-from-gitosis-to-gitolite-on.html

There are a number of articles and blogs on how to use Git. But not very much information on how to setup your own Git server. Here are the steps on how to setup your Git server using gitosis on Ubuntu and use a Git client from Windows (cygwin in my case).

git-server: The server where the git repository is hosted.
git-client: The windows client accessing git
gituser: Windows user name using the git client
git: The username under which the git repository is created on the git-server.

First of all make sure that the Ubuntu server has the latest updates and install the required tools

git-server> sudo apt-get update
git-server> sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
git-server> sudo apt-get install python-setuptools

Install gitosis and add user named git on the git-server who will manage the git repository.

git-server> sudo apt-get install git-core gitosis
git-server> sudo adduser --system --shell /bin/sh --gecos 'git version control' \
                         --group --disabled-password --home /home/git git            

On the client machine, create a SSH public/private key for the user to access Git. Then provide permissions on the git server for this user.

git-client> ssh-keygen -t rsa

This will create private/public keys under $HOME/.ssh directory. On a cygwin platform, it will be under /home/gituser directory. Now upload the public key to git-server.

git-client> scp /home/gituser/.ssh/id_rsa.pub gitadmin@git-server:/tmp/

Initialize gitosis admin repository

git-server> sudo -H -u git gitosis-init < /tmp/id_rsa.pub
git-server> sudo chmod 755 /home/git/repositories/gitosis-admin.git/hooks/post-update

Add your new project to git by modifying the git-admin configuration.

git-client> git clone git@git-server:gitosis-admin.git
git-client> cd gitosis-admin
git-client> vi gitosis.conf

The gitosis.conf has one project, gitosis-admin. Duplicate the [gitosis-admin] section and modify for your new project. The results will be as given below:

Commit and push the new changes to gitosis.conf file.

git-client> git commit -a -m 'Added new project my-new-project'
git-client> push

Import files to the new project

git-client> cd my-new-project
git-client:~/my-new-project/> git init
git-client:~/my-new-project/> git add .
git-client:~/my-new-project/> git commit -m 'Initial import of files to my-new-project'
git-client:~/my-new-project/> git remote add origin git@git-server:my-new-project.git
git-client:~/my-new-project/> git push -u origin master

Now the project is available in the remote git repository. Any new user can get the code by simply cloning the repository

git clone git@git-server:my-new-project.git

References

1. http://www.hackido.com/2010/01/installing-git-on-server-ubuntu-or.html
2. http://blog.jasonmeridth.com/2010/05/22/gitosis-and-gitweb-part-1.html
3. http://thelucid.com/2008/12/02/git-setting-up-a-remote-repository-and-doing-an-initial-push/
4. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Git