svn to git: central repository setup

The best thing about git is you can just start working; no messing around setting up the central repository, working out secure access, etc. But the learning curve for git, coming from svn, is much bigger than say from cvs to svn. The thing I'd not got my head around was what do you do when you need that central repository? For instance, when you have a 2nd developer! I think I've got it now, so here is my guide on it.

Let's assume it is a website ("mysite"), and we have three machines involved:
devel: where most development is done
store: the central repository server
www: the web server

The website is on devel currently, under git, and we want to check it out to www.
If not a website, but just two developers, then in this example "www" is the machine of that second developer.

For simplicity we'll assume all developers have ssh access to the "store" machine. And that all our git repositories will be kept under /var/git/

1. On store:
cd /var/git/
mkdir mysite.git
cd mysite.git
git init --bare

(see update#1 below, if your git does not support --bare)

2. On devel (from the root of the website)
git remote add origin darren@store:/var/git/mysite.git
git push origin master
(the "origin master" part is just needed the first time)

3. On www,
cd /var/www/
git clone darren@store:/var/git/mysite.git my.example.com
(this creates /var/www/my.example.com and checks out the current version of the site)
(you need to configure your web server to not serve the .git directory, as well as any other files end users should not see)

4. If we make a change on devel and want to update www.
First on devel, do the commits, then:
git push
Then on www:
git pull

5. If we make a change on www, and want to update devel.
First on www, do the commits, then:
git push
Then on devel do:
git pull origin master

Not quite symmetrical is it? To fix this, so in future you just need to do "git pull" from the devel machine too, edit .git/config. You'll see these lines:

[remote "origin"]
url = darren@store:/var/git/mysite.git
fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

Don't touch them but, just above them, add this block:

[branch "master"]
remote = origin
merge = refs/heads/master

(unless you are doing something clever, you can use that verbatim). Now "git pull" works without having to specify "origin master" any more.

So, "git commit ...;git push" is like "svn commit ...". And "git pull" is like "svn checkout".


UPDATE #1: Older versions of git don't have the --bare function. Do these steps (on "store" machine) instead:

cd /var/git/
mkdir mysite.git
cd mysite.git
git init
mv .git/* .
rmdir .git

UPDATE #2: What to do if you already have some files on www, with some differences from what is in git? E.g. I had a test and live version of a website, with no source control; the test version had a number of extra files. I scp-ed the live version to devel, created a git repository. Then I set it up and push-ed it to "store". Then on my test site, I had to do these steps:

#Temporarily move current test files out of the way
mv my.example.com{,.old}
#Get the git version
git clone darren@store:/var/git/mysite.git my.example.com
#Merge in the test site
cd my.example.com
cp -a ../my.example.com.old/* .
#See what is different
git status
#For all changed files, revert to the git (live server) version
git reset --hard

By the end of all this, git status will just list (as untracked) the files that were on test but were not on live.