How to set up a locally hosted git server and create new repositories

You may have code and configurations that are required to stay on premise. As a result, you will need to setup your own git server and create and manage repositories locally. Following is an overview of how to set that up.

We will leave aside server setup, configuration, and networking and assume that we have a machine on which we will host the repos, git-server, and machines that will clone, pull, and push updates, clients.

Setting up the git-server

On the git-server add git-shell to the list of valid shells.

echo $(which git-shell) >> /etc/shells

Add a git user with a specific shell and setup the directory in which all of the repos will be stored.

useradd --shell $(which git-shell) --home-dir /home/git git
mkdir -p /home/git/.ssh
chown -R git: /home/git/.ssh
touch /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys
chown -R git: /home/git/.ssh
chmod 600 /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 700 /home/git/.ssh
mkdir -p /var/lib/git_repo
chown git: /var/lib/git_repo
chmod 700 /var/lib/git_repo

Adding a new user

To add a new user that can commit to and pull repos via ssh concatenate their public ssh key to /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys.

Creating a new repository

As root on the git-server

export GIT_REPO=<new-repo-name>.git
sudo -u git mkdir /var/lib/git_repo/$GIT_REPO
cd /var/lib/git_repo/$GIT_REPO && sudo -u git git init --bare

As an authorized git user on the client machine

mkdir example && cd example
git init
echo "# README" >> README.md
git add README.md
git commit -m 'Initial commit'
git remote add origin git@hpdl01:/var/lib/git_repo/<new-repo-name>.git
git push origin master

Now you can clone with

git clone git@hpdl01:/var/lib/git_repo/example.git