Git solves your problems

So last night, I wanted to install a Subversion server on Emma's darling quad-core behemoth hosting akerr.net among *other things*. Inspecting the installation, it seems mod_dav was not compiled into Apache2.x, and no one after Apache 1.3 seems to suggest loading it as a dynamic shared library. I successfully compiled several test builds of Apache2.2 in user space, but matching Emma's configuration in a maintainable way would have been a nightmare inside of doubtfulness wrapped in the promise of sleepless nights down the road if things go wrong.

Then I went looking for alternatives. It seems the only administrative prerequisites for hosting a remote Git repository are that the host runs sshd and you to have an account on said machine. After installing the lovely msysgit git client for Windows on my home desktop, I performed the following.

On the remote side:

$ ssh akerr@akerr.net:
$ mkdir akerr.git && cd akerr.git
$ git --bare init
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/akerr/akerr.git/
$


On the local side:

$ cd C:/research/akerr
$ git init
$ git remote add origin "ssh://akerr@akerr.net:<ssh port>/~/akerr.git"
$ git add infrastructure/
...
$ git commit -a -m "initial revision of libkerr"
$ git push origin master
...
$


This is all that is needed. To pull from the remote host, simply perform the following:


$ git pull origin master
...
$


The elegant components of this solution are:
- doesn't require superuser access or configuration changes on the host
- security is a function of SSH
- git is fast and functional in an isolated environment

Thank you, Emma, for the free hosting. This helps you too. : )