GIT GUI for solo project: Windows PC for development, but git + active, working project repo on a LAN headless linux server?
I just installed git for the first time for a solo project -- and now I don't know how I lived without version control for so long. I wanted to see if maybe a GUI would be helpful, but I have a problem...
- My development machine is running windows
- The project is on a headless linux server on the LAN
- Project directories are shared through samba and mapped as network drives on the windows pc
- I am the only one using this server, so there's no need to clone the repo to the windows pc
- If I use git through SSH none of this is a problem at all
The GUI git clients I've tried so far all assume I'm running git on the machine I install them on, though. If I try to operate on the linux-hosted repo with widnows-installed git, it's (not unexpectedly) slow as molasses and seems to have compatibility issues.
Is there any way to make this work for smartgit? Or any other decent client?
I did install gitweb, which seems nice enough to look through project history, but I can't actually 'do' anything with it.
EDIT: If I could maybe broaden this question and just ask for a word of advice on how to proceed, ie: suck it up and use Putty with something else for visualization, clone the repo and push/pull, or do something different like svick's X Server suggestion.
Okay, I'll be marking my own answer correct for clarity and not vanity, to hopefully help someone caught in a similar predicament. I hope no one will be offended.
As, a side note, after coming up with a working solution, I still ended up using SSH and a drive-mapped shared linux directory for development, but it's useful to have a local place on the windows machine to put a working repo. GIT is just slow as molasses on windows for me no matter what, so I'll be using it that way as little as possible -- but that's just me.
If your bash-foo is weak like mine, webmin can help with the below. So here's what I ended up doing:
Summary:
- Web-based project (LAMP stack in my case)
- Solo developer
- 1 Windows pc used for development
- 1 headless linux server to host the stack and the project
Purpose:
- Set up a working repo locally on the windows PC to enable efficient use of git GUI clients, etc without having to make a whole working stack or commit and push to see what the hell just happened. PHP on windows sucks (yes, yes, more than usual har har), and so do a lot of other things.
Solution upside:
- No need to duplicate the LAMP stack on the windows machine, or screw with the database to have a working local repo
- Preview your changes in real-time without having to commit or push
Solution downside:
- Local (windows) repo only functional if computer is on the network
- You might see a bit of network latency due the loopty-loo nature of what's happening here
Prerequisites:
- Static or MAC based IPs for both the windows and linux machines
- git, BIND, Samba, Apache (or similar) on the linux box
- SSH client (Putty?), msysgit, git GUI of choice (gitextensions/smartgit/gitgui) on the windows box
What to do:
- Set up a shared directory on the windows box for the repo
- Mount this directory on the linux box
- Point BIND to the linux box's own IP for your two domain (eg: myproject.lin and myproject.win) -- (apologies for the fake tlds, but use your own discretion here)
- Make the linux box your dns resolver for either the windows box or your network router
- Set up two domain-based servers in Apache (the ones above) and direct them to the appropriate locations (eg: '/mnt/windows-pc/myproject' and '/var/www/myproject')
- Make sure your application configuration can map relative paths for obvious reasons
- Samba-share the linux repo and maybe map it as a windows network drive for convenience
- Clone your linux box's repo to the windows directory
- Push changes as needed back to the linux shared project directory
To further complicate what probably hardly needed any explanation here is a (simplified) diagram:
