User:Anders Feder/Writings/Enabling simple public HTTP access to local Git repository

Enabling simple public HTTP access to local Git repository

If you've set up a local Git repository like the above in your tool directory, you can easily set up public read access to the repository through HTTP. This will allow you to, for instance, clone the Git repository to your own home computer without using an intermediary service such as GitHub.

First create the www/static/ subdirectory in your tool's home directory, if it does not already exist:

mkdir ~/www
mkdir ~/www/static/

Now go to the www/static/ directory, and make a symbolic link to your bare Git repository (the hidden .git subdirectory in the root of your repository):

cd ~/www/static/
ln -s ~/.git yourtool.git

Now change directory into the symbolic link you just created, and run the git update-server-info command to generate some auxiliary info files needed for the HTTP connectivity:

cd yourtool.git
git update-server-info

Enable a few Git hooks for updating said auxiliary info files every time someone commits, rewrites or pushes to the repository:

ln -s hooks/post-update.sample hooks/post-commit
ln -s hooks/post-update.sample hooks/post-rewrite
ln -s hooks/post-update.sample hooks/post-update
chmod a+x hooks/post-update.sample

You're done. You should now be able to clone the repository from any remote machine by running the command:

git clone http://tools-static.wmflabs.org/yourtool/yourtool.git