Step 1: setup a bare GIT repository

At the time of writing, git-http-push cannot remotely create a GIT repository. So we have to do that at the server side with git. Another option is to generate an empty bare repository at the client and copy it to the server with a WebDAV client (which is the only option if Git is not installed on the server).

Create the directory under the DocumentRoot of the directories served by Apache. As an example we take /usr/local/apache2, but try "grep DocumentRoot /where/ever/httpd.conf" to find your root:

  $ cd /usr/local/apache/htdocs
  $ mkdir my-new-repo.git

On Debian::

  $ cd /var/www
  $ mkdir my-new-repo.git

Initialize a bare repository:

$ cd my-new-repo.git
$ git --bare init

Change the ownership to your web-server's credentials. Use "grep ^User httpd.conf" and "grep ^Group httpd.conf" to find out:

  $ chown -R www.www .

On Debian::

  $ chown -R www-data.www-data .

If you do not know which user Apache runs as, you can alternatively do a "chmod -R a+w .", inspect the files which are created later on, and set the permissions appropriately.

Restart apache2, and check whether http://server/my-new-repo.git gives a directory listing. If not, check whether apache started up successfully.

Step 2: enable DAV on this repository

First make sure the dav_module is loaded. For this, insert in httpd.conf:

LoadModule dav_module libexec/httpd/libdav.so
AddModule mod_dav.c

Also make sure that this line exists which is the file used for locking DAV operations:

DAVLockDB "/usr/local/apache2/temp/DAV.lock"

On Debian these steps can be performed with:

  Enable the dav and dav_fs modules of apache:
  $ a2enmod dav_fs
  (just to be sure. dav_fs might be unneeded, I don't know)
  $ a2enmod dav
  The DAV lock is located in /etc/apache2/mods-available/dav_fs.conf:
    DAVLockDB /var/lock/apache2/DAVLock

Of course, it can point somewhere else, but the string is actually just a prefix in some Apache configurations, and therefore the _directory_ has to be writable by the user Apache runs as.

Then, add something like this to your httpd.conf:

<Location /my-new-repo.git>
   DAV on
   AuthType Basic
   AuthName "Git"
   AuthUserFile /usr/local/apache2/conf/passwd.git
   Require valid-user
</Location>

On Debian:

Create (or add to) /etc/apache2/conf.d/git.conf :

<Location /my-new-repo.git>
   DAV on
   AuthType Basic
   AuthName "Git"
   AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/passwd.git
   Require valid-user
</Location>

Debian automatically reads all files under /etc/apache2/conf.d.

The password file can be somewhere else, but it has to be readable by Apache and preferably not readable by the world.

Create this file by:

$ htpasswd -c /usr/local/apache2/conf/passwd.git <user>

On Debian:
  $ htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/passwd.git <user>

You will be asked a password, and the file is created. Subsequent calls to htpasswd should omit the '-c' option, since you want to append to the existing file.

You need to restart Apache.

Now go to http://<username>@<servername>/my-new-repo.git in your browser to check whether it asks for a password and accepts the right password.

On Debian:

To test the WebDAV part, do:

$ apt-get install litmus $ litmus http://<servername>/my-new-repo.git <username> <password>

Most tests should pass.

A command line tool to test WebDAV is cadaver. If you prefer GUIs, for example, konqueror can open WebDAV URLs as "webdav://..." or "webdavs://...".

If you're into Windows, from XP onwards Internet Explorer supports WebDAV. For this, do Internet Explorer -> Open Location -> http://<servername>/my-new-repo.git [x] Open as webfolder -> login .

Step 3: setup the client

Make sure that you have HTTP support, i.e. your git was built with libcurl (version more recent than 7.10). The command 'git http-push' with no argument should display a usage message.

Then, add the following to your $HOME/.netrc (you can do without, but will be asked to input your password a _lot_ of times):

machine <servername> login <username> password <password>

...and set permissions:

chmod 600 ~/.netrc

If you want to access the web-server by its IP, you have to type that in, instead of the server name.

To check whether all is OK, do:

curl --netrc --location -v http://<username>@<servername>/my-new-repo.git/HEAD

...this should give something like 'ref: refs/heads/master', which is the content of the file HEAD on the server.

Now, add the remote in your existing repository which contains the project you want to export:

$ git-config remote.upload.url

http://<username>@<servername>/my-new-repo.git/

It is important to put the last '/'; Without it, the server will send a redirect which git-http-push does not (yet) understand, and git-http-push will repeat the request infinitely.

Step 4: make the initial push

From your client repository, do

$ git push upload master

This pushes branch 'master' (which is assumed to be the branch you want to export) to repository called 'upload', which we previously defined with git-config.

Using a proxy:

If yo