How do you use git --bare init repository

Question

I need to create a central Git repository but I m a little confused     I have created a bare repository  in my git server  machine 2  with     mkdir test repo   git --bare init   Now I need to push files from my local repository  machine 1  to the bare repository  machine 2   I have access to machine 2 by SSH  The thing is that I think I don t understand the concept of a bare repository     What is the right way of storing my code in the bare repository  How can I push changes from my local repository to the bare repository   Is the right way of having a central repository to have a bare repository   I m a little confused with this subject  Please give me a clue on this

User · Accepted Answer

Firstly  just to check  you need to change into the directory you ve created before running git init --bare   Also  it s conventional to give bare repositories the extension  git   So you can do  git init --bare test repo git   For Git versions  lt  1 8 you would do  mkdir test repo git cd test repo git git --bare init   To answer your later questions  bare repositories  by definition  don t have a working tree attached to them  so you can t easily add files to them as you would in a normal non-bare repository  e g  with git add  lt file gt  and a subsequent git commit    You almost always update a bare repository by pushing to it  using git push  from another repository   Note that in this case you ll need to first allow people to push to your repository  When inside test repo git  do  git config receive denyCurrentBranch ignore   Community edit  git init --bare --shared group   As commented by prasanthv  this is what you want if you are doing this at work  rather than for a private home project

User · Answer

It is nice to verify that the code you pushed actually got committed   You can get a log of changes on a bare repository by explicitly setting the path using the --relative option     cd test repo   git log --relative     This will show you the committed changes as if this was a regular git repo

User · Answer

The --bare flag creates a repository that doesn   t have a working directory  The bare repository is the central repository and you can t edit store  codes here for avoiding the merging error   For example  when you add a file in your local repository  machine 1  and push it to the bare repository  you can t see the file in the bare repository for it is always  empty   However  you really push something to the repository and you can see it inexplicitly by cloning another repository in your server machine 2     Both the local repository in machine 1 and the  copy  repository in machine 2 are non-bare  relationship between bare and non-bare repositories  The blog will help you understand it  https   www atlassian com git tutorials setting-up-a-repository

User · Answer

You can execute the following commands to initialize your local repository  mkdir newProject cd newProject touch  gitignore git init git add   git commit -m  Initial Commit  git remote add origin user host   path on server newProject git git push origin master   You should work on your project from your local repository and use the server as the central repository   You can also follow this article which explains each and every aspect of creating and maintaining a Git repository  Git for Beginners

User · Answer

You could also ask git to create directory for you   git init --bare test repo git

User · Answer

I m adding this answer because after arriving here  with the same question   none of the answers really describe all the required steps needed to go from nothing to a fully usable remote  bare  repo   Note  this example uses local paths for the location of the bare repo  but other git protocols  like SSH indicated by the OP  should work just fine   I ve tried to add some notes along the way for those less familiar with git   1  Initialise the bare repo      gt  git init --bare  path to bare repo git Initialised empty Git repository in  path to bare repo git    This creates a folder  repo git  and populates it with git files representing a git repo  As it stands  this repo is useless - it has no commits and more importantly  no branches  Although you can clone this repo  you cannot pull from it   Next  we need to create a working folder  There are a couple of ways of doing this  depending upon whether you have existing files   2a  Create a new working folder  no existing files  by cloning the empty repo  git clone  path to bare repo git  path to work Cloning into   path to work     warning  You appear to have cloned an empty repository  done    This command will only work if  path to work does not exist or is an empty folder  Take note of the warning - at this stage  you still don t have anything useful  If you cd  path to work and run git status  you ll get something like   On branch master  Initial commit  nothing to commit  create copy files and use  git add  to track    but this is a lie  You are not really on branch master  because git branch returns nothing  and so far  there are no commits   Next  copy move create some files in the working folder  add them to git and create the first commit    gt  cd  path to work  gt  echo 123  gt  afile txt  gt  git add    gt  git config --local user name adelphus  gt  git config --local user email adelphus example com  gt  git commit -m  added afile   master  root-commit  614ab02  added afile  1 file changed  1 insertion     create mode 100644 afile txt   The git config commands are only needed if you haven t already told git who you are  Note that if you now run git branch  you ll now see the master branch listed  Now run git status   On branch master Your branch is based on  origin master   but the upstream is gone     use  git branch --unset-upstream  to fixup   nothing to commit  working directory clean   This is also misleading - upstream has not  gone   it just hasn t been created yet and git branch --unset-upstream will not help  But that s OK  now that we have our first commit  we can push and master will be created on the bare repo    gt  git push origin master Counting objects  3  done  Writing objects  100   3 3   207 bytes   0 bytes s  done  Total 3  delta 0   reused 0  delta 0  To  path to bare repo git     new branch       master - gt  master   At this point  we have a fully functional bare repo which can be cloned elsewhere on a master branch as well as a local working copy which can pull and push    gt  git pull Already up-to-date   gt  git push origin master Everything up-to-date   2b  Create a working folder from existing files If you already have a folder with files in it  so you cannot clone into it   you can initialise a new git repo  add a first commit and then link it to the bare repo afterwards    gt  cd  path to work with stuff  gt  git init  Initialised empty Git repository in  path to work with stuff  gt  git add     add git config stuff if needed  gt  git commit -m  added stuff    master  root-commit  614ab02  added stuff  20 files changed  1431 insertions     create mode 100644 stuff txt       At this point we have our first commit and a local master branch which we need to turn into a remote-tracked upstream branch    gt  git remote add origin  path to bare repo git  gt  git push -u origin master Counting objects  31  done  Delta compression using up to 4 threads  Compressing objects  100   31 31   done  Writing objects  100   31 31   43 23 KiB   0 bytes s  done  Total 31  delta 11   reused 0  delta 0  To  path to bare repo git     new branch       master - gt  master Branch master set up to track remote branch master from origin    Note the -u flag on git push to set the  new  tracked upstream branch  Just as before  we now have a fully functional bare repo which can be cloned elsewhere on a master branch as well as a local working copy which can pull and push   All this may seem obvious to some  but git confuses me at the best of times  it s error and status messages really need some rework  - hopefully  this will help others

User · Answer

This should be enough   git remote add origin  lt url-of-bare-repo gt  git push --all origin   See for more details  GIT  How do I update my bare repo    Notes     you can use a different name than  origin  for the bare repo remote reference  this won t push your tags  you need a separate git push --tags origin for that

User · Answer

The general practice is to have the central repository to which you push as a bare repo   If you have SVN background  you can relate an SVN repo to a Git bare repo  It doesn t have the files in the repo in the original form  Whereas your local repo will have the files that form your  code  in addition   You need to add a remote to the bare repo from your local repo and push your  code  to it   It will be something like   git remote add central  lt url gt    url will be ssh based for you git push --all central

User · Answer

Based on Mark Longair  amp  Roboprog answers    if git version    1 8  git init --bare --shared group  git git config receive denyCurrentBranch ignore   Or    if git version  lt  1 8  mkdir  git cd  git git init --bare --shared group  git config receive denyCurrentBranch ignore

User · Answer

Answering your questions one by one   Bare repository is the one that has no working tree  It means its whole contents is what you have in  git directory   You can only commit to bare repository by pushing to it from your local clone  It has no working tree  so it has no files modified  no changes   To have central repository the only way it is to have a bare repository

[git] How do you use "git --bare init" repository?

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