Setting up a github locally

I've wanted to allow all the machines locally (on my intranet) to access a single github repository without needing direct write access to the files that actually host the repo. Fortunately, I found this how-to that I adapted to ensure all my machines could do this. It starts out by using the git protocol to serve the files. This is insecure if exposed on an external network, but should be fine on my internal network. Here is what I did.

I created a local CNAME record on my DNS to git.bedewell.com so that I could serve the set of repo's from any host.
```
 cname=git.bedewell.com,rasp-pi
```
On the particular machine that I want to use (one of my Raspberry Pi's) I created a git user that would actually be serving the repo's.
```
 adduser git --disabled-login 
```
On the rasp-pi I've mounted a location on my NAS where all the git repositories will be located (/home/git/repos).

In /home/git/.gitconfig I added the following lines that allow a short cut for serving (as a hub)

 [alias]
   hub   = !git daemon --base-path=. --export-all --enable=receive-pack --reuseaddr --informative-errors --verbose

Using supervisord I configured the machine to always run git hub on startup - which will allow the machine to serve the appropriate locations under /home/git/repos (the only important aspect is that git hub must be launched in that directory.

Now - to create a new repository all I need do is become git on the rasp-pi, create a new folder (newrepo) in the repository and do the following in that new folder

    git init --shared=all

We will also need to ensure that rasp-pi is using the master branch whilst all the remote versions are running another (I use working)

    git checkout -b working
    touch README
    git add README
    git commit -m "init working"
    git checkout -b master

Obviously it is easier to put all this in a script to automate the process of making a new repository.

The repo is now ready for use on a remote machine. On the remote machine you simply clone the repository and use the working branch.

    git clone git://git.bedewell.com/newrepo
    git checkout working

To aid my memory I actually create a README file on both the master and working branch - in the master version I indicate the user should be using the working branch.