Re: Question re. git remote repository

On Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:49:09 +0000
"Lang, David" [off-list ref] wrote:

We're just in the process of investigating a versioning tool and are
very interesting in git. We have one question we're hoping someone
can answer. In regards to the repositories, I think I understand
correctly that each developer will have a local repository that they
will work from, and that there will also be a remote repository
(origin) that will hold the original version of the project.

The name "origin" is purely arbitrary: any local repository might have

It appears from the limited reading I've done that the remote
repository must be hosted at github.com. Is this the case?

Of course not.  github is just a Git hosting provider.  There are
plenty of them -- both commercial and not-for-profit (a well-known
service bitbucket.org is one example).

Ideally we'd prefer to simply create our remote repository on a drive
of one of our local network servers. Is this possible?

Yes, this is possible, but it's not advised to keep such a "reference"
repository on an exported networked drive for a number of reasons (both
performance and bug-free operation).

Instead, the canonical way to host "reference" repositories is to make
them accessible via SSH or via HTTP[S].  To do this, a server running
some POSIX OS (Linux- or *BSD-based) is the best bet.  Both kinds of
access require Git itself installed on the server.  Obviously, SSH
access requires an SSH server software (such as OpenSSH) as well and
HTTP[S] access requires a web server (such as Apache).  Of course,
everything mentioned is available on any sensible OS you might install
on your server.  Read-only access might be provided by a special tool
named "Git daemon" which is a part of Git.

If you have more than a couple of developers you might want to install
certain front-end Git software on the server which provides for
"virtualized" Git users and fine-grained control over who can do what.
Using gitolite [3] for this is the current trend.

Web-browsing for your repositories, if needed, is usually provided by
the tool named gitweb [4].

Everything I've just summarised is well explained in [5] and [6] (as an
addendum).

Another approach is to set up a "turn-key" solution such as GitLab [1]
or gitblit [2].

1. http://gitlabhq.com/
2. http://gitblit.com/
3. https://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite
4. https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Gitweb
5. http://git-scm.com/book/en/Git-on-the-Server
6. http://git-scm.com/2010/03/04/smart-http.html