New to version control... pushing commits to web server?

Benjamin Allison

So I'm new to version control, and of courre, all things Git. I'm just wondering, what is the best way to handle sending my commits to my live web server?

Currently I'm making changes on my local machine, committing, then manually uploading revised files via ftp. But I assume there's a slick way (probably using the "Push" feature???) to automagically push files in a commit to the web server. Just thought I'd ask before possibly mucking something up!

Thanks!

stevestreeting

Yes, transmitting changes to another repository, whether that's over a file system, or a http protocol, or a ssh protocol, is done using 'Push'. You configure a remote to push to - you give it a name, and a URL, which might be something like https://yourusername@bitbucket.org/yourusername/yourrepo for example. Pushing is more sophisticated than just replicating the files, because it only pushes what's new, and in git you can also choose which branches you want to push. It also plays nicely when you start adding more users to the repository.

The easiest way to create a remote is to click the 'Settings' button on a repository window (toolbar top right), and add a new remote. You need somewhere to push, the easiest way to do this is to create a Bitbucket account and then create a Git repository there, which will be empty until you push to it. Bitbucket allows you to have free private repositories for up to 5 people so it's a great way to try it out with no setup overhead. In fact, if you want you can configure your Bitbucket account in SourceTree (View > Show Hosted Repositories > Edit Accounts), and once you've done that, you can see your Bitbucket repositories in a list to get to their URLs quickly for cloning or configuring in the Settings window, and you can even create new repositories on Bitbucket from inside SourceTree.

HTH!