Setting up a FreeBSD multi-user git server

This is a quick note on how to create a multi-user git server hosted on your own FreeBSD set-up, using the SSH protocol for reading/writing from/to repositories. Steps to follow (as ‘root‘):

1. Install the ‘git‘ package:

   pkg_add -r git

2. Create a group called ‘gitusers‘:

   pw groupadd gitusers

3. Create a user called ‘gitserver‘, part of the ‘gitusers‘ group, without shell access:

   pw useradd gitserver -g gitusers -s /sbin/nologin -m

4. Invite existing users to the ‘gitusers‘ group, (e.g.: users ‘tom‘ and ‘alice‘):

   pw usermod tom -G gitusers
   pw usermod alice -G gitusers

5. Create a new example repository, in `/home/gitserver/‘, called ‘example-repository‘:

   # Create an empty repository:
   cd /home/gitserver/
   mkdir example-repository
   cd example-repository
   git init
   # Clone into a bare repository:
   cd ..
   git clone --bare example-repository example-repository.git

6. Change permissions, to allow ‘gitusers‘ group members to execute and read/write from/to repository contents:

   cd /home/gitserver/
   chown -R gitserver:gitusers ./example-repository.git/
   chmod -R g=rxw ./example-repository.git

7. Clone the repository on the client machine, and add your first commit to the ‘master‘ branch: NOTE: Replace hostname.tld, with the hostname of your machine.

   # Clone the repository:
   git clone ssh://tom@hostname.tld/home/gitserver/example-repository.git
   # Add your first commit:
   cd example-repository.git
   touch README
   git add README
   git commit -am "First commit."
   # Push changes
   git push origin master

References:

http://git-scm.com/book/ch4-2.html

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/users.html