Git Push Local Code to Live Linux Server

This is the first post of a many part Linux/Ubuntu deployment series. Part two is here.

Git is a version control system. It's a simple way to track changes in your code.

It also can be a simple way to deploy your code to a live server.

Don't have a live server? Pick one up for $5/mo on Digital Ocean (no referral)

Once you set it up 1 time successfully. You'll never want to user another method (I'm looking at you SFTP).

Let's do this.

Basic Requirments

Mac / Linux

You'll need to use Terminal.

Windows

use PowerShell or possibly PuTTY (for SSH). This guide might not work for your version Windows too. :()

Live Server Details

Ubuntu 18.04 is what we use here but not required.
Other Linux Distro? Check how to install git, most/all other things are the same.

Step 1. Install git locally and create local repo

Did I mention this step is local?

Download and install git from https://git-scm.com/downloads .

Then,

bash

mkdir Dev
cd Dev
mkdir myproject
cd myproject
git init

Step 2. SSH into Live Server

bash

ssh [email protected]

Replace [email protected] with your user and ip

Step 3. Install git on Server

bash

sudo apt-get install git -y

Step 4. Create bare git repo

bash

cd /var/
mkdir repo
cd /var/repo/
mkdir myproject.git
cd myproject.git

Starting fresh?

bash

git init --bare

Using previous?

bash

git clone https://github.com/codingforentrepreneurs/CFE-Blank-Project . --bare

Step 5. Add post-receive hook

Hooks are very useful for doing things automatically while working with git.

In our case, we need a hook for after a successful push aka post-receive to unpack our code into a server-side working directory.

Make initial working directory

bash

mkdir /var/www/
mkdir /var/www/myproject/

View all hook samples

bash

ls -al /var/repo/myproject.git/hooks/

Create the actual post-receive hook

bash

cd /var/repo/myproject.git/hooks/
nano post-receive

In post-receive

bash

git --work-tree=/var/www/myproject/ --git-dir=/var/repo/myproject.git/ checkout -f

Make hook executable

bash

cd /var/repo/myproject.git/hooks/
chmod +x post-receive

Step 6. Get host name

bash

myip=$(hostname  -I | cut -f1 -d' ')
echo $myip

This will yield a value of something like 104.248.231.241 but with your actual value.

Step 7. Add to local git repo

Exit live server

bash

exit

Change into local working directory

bash

# on local computer
cd ~/Dev/myproject

Check git is working... No errors right?

bash

git status

Add live remote

bash

git remote add live ssh://[email protected]/var/repo/myproject.git

The format is this:

git remote add remote-name ssh://your-user@your-host-or-ip-address/var/repo/your-project.git

Step 8. Make Changes Locally and Push

bash

cd ~/Dev/myproject
echo "hello there" > test.txt
git add 'test.txt'
git commit -m "Local file test"
git push live master

Step 9. SSH again into your server....

bash

ssh [email protected]

Can you find your code? How did it go?

Step 10. Need that code on another local computer?

bash

cd path/to/local/dir
git init
git remote add live ssh://[email protected]/var/repo/myproject.git
git pull live master

Next steps

Part two is here.

We'll be covering how to go from local to fully running production code as outline on the official repo. We started with git because every great project should start with git init.