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I am trying to backup gitosis and a repository to a backup tarball and then restore and test on a blank system to ensure that in case of complete server failure that I can get a new system running quickly.

I have the two directories using

git clone --mirror gitosis@localhost:gitosis-admin.git gitosis-backup.repo
git clone --mirror gitosis@localhost:test1.git test1-backup.repo

And then taring up

On my cleanly installed machine I have extracted the tarballs and done

git clone gitosis-backup.repo gitosis-admin
git clone test1-backup.repo test1

Going into the the two directories and doing git log shows the history.

But this isn't committed to the new server. But doing git push origin master doesn't work and it claims to be up-to-date.

But any attempt to do a clone from my new server fails as, quite rightly, the repo isn't actually part of the server.

So how do I finish the job? I have been unable to find an answer about restoring gitosis on this site or any other.

Output from testing with the help from VoC is as follows

mkdir git_restore
cd git_restore
mkdir tarballs
cd tarballs
cp ~/backup/*.tgz
tar -zxf gitosis-admin.repo.tgz
tar -zxf test1-backup.repo.tgz

cd ..
mkdir local_repo
cd local_repo

ssh-keygen

sudo apt-get install gitosis

sudo -H -u gitosis gitosis-init < /home/ian/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

ls /srv/gitosis/git # check that this is not a broken sym link

git clone gitosis@localhost:gitosis-admin

cd gitosis-admin

git log # Has the initialise entry

cd ../..

mkdir restore

cd restore

git clone ../tarballs/gitosis-admin.repo gitosis-admin
git clone ../tarballs/test1-backup.repo test1

cd gitosis-admin

git log # Full log is present

git push gitosis@localhost:gitosis-admin master
To gitosis@localhost:gitosis-admin
 ! [rejected]        master -> master (non-fast-forward)
error: failed to push some refs to 'gitosis@localhost:gitosis-admin'
To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were rejected
Merge the remote changes before pushing again.  See the 'Note about
fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help' for details.

git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit (working directory clean)

git fetch

git merge origin master
Already up-to-date. Yeeah!

git push gitosis@localhost:gitosis-admin master
To gitosis@localhost:gitosis-admin
 ! [rejected]        master -> master (non-fast-forward)
error: failed to push some refs to 'gitosis@localhost:gitosis-admin'
To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were rejected
Merge the remote changes before pushing again.  See the 'Note about
fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help' for details.

As an aside doing git push gitosis@localhost:gitosis-admin origin/master seems to push, but then if I then do a clone of the gitosis-admin in a separate directory and then do git log then I just have the initialisation entry.

Ian Smith
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    I'm slightly confused by what you are asking. Is gitosis actually installed on the new server? Gitosis is more than just the gitosis-admin.git repository (although that is important). – ebneter Sep 25 '12 at 21:10
  • I've done a clean install on a ubuntu server and done apt-get install git gitosis. So how do I then restore the settings that I already have from the old server and keys? – Ian Smith Sep 26 '12 at 05:43

2 Answers2

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If you are using ssh addresses, as described in "Setting up git securely and easily using gitosis", you need to make sure the gitosis admin account has the right ~gitosis/.ssh/authorized_keys that you has on your first server, plus the public and private keys initially used to clone the gitosis-admin.git repo.

To summarize the comments below:

  • install gitosis on the server
  • make sure your ssh daemon is working on said server
  • generate a new key (still on the server) which will allows you to clone the gitosis-admin repo
  • untar your backup repos on your local workstation
  • git push --force your local gitosis-admin back on the server, using the new account with the new key.
VonC
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  • Where do you ssh from? In the worst case scenario the server that is currently running the GIT repos is now toast. I then have to get a replacement machine and set that running. All I have is the last repo backup done via git clone. The replacement machine did not exist before the crash so cannot ssh from the now dead server to the new machine. – Ian Smith Sep 26 '12 at 10:59
  • @Ian your new server must have its own ssh daemon up and running if you want gitosis to work. But if you don't have the public /private keys anymore, then you need to regenerate at least one on the server to be able to clone the gitosis-admin repo. – VonC Sep 26 '12 at 11:18
  • That makes sense. So I have a new "admin" key pair and a clean gitosis admin repo. So I can see that I could untar the archive and copy all of the files to the new checked out repo and do a git add. But then I would no longer have the history. How do I reapply all of the files and the history to the new clean gitosis admin? – Ian Smith Sep 26 '12 at 14:15
  • @IanSmith if you have tared the gitosis repositories directory with all the .git directories in it, then you have fully functioning repos: you don't have to add those to a new repo. – VonC Sep 26 '12 at 14:55
  • but I still need to push these to the new server don't I? So if I have untarred the files to /home/git/mybackup that needs to be pushed to the new server. But as already stated doing a git push origin master in this directory does nothing. This is my original issue. – Ian Smith Sep 26 '12 at 15:44
  • @IanSmith If what you have tarred are the `.git` repos themselves, I would recommend untarring them directly on the server, not trying to push them. Then validate gitosis clone/pull, before checking the push. – VonC Sep 26 '12 at 15:46
  • So basically untar the two tarballs into /srv/gitosis/git and that's it all done? – Ian Smith Sep 26 '12 at 15:49
  • @IanSmith that one step, but you still need to generate a new ssh key on that same server, and then test the cloning of the `gitosis-admin` repo. Finally, try pushing back that repo. – VonC Sep 26 '12 at 15:51
  • thank you for the help so far. But I have a clean gitosis-admin and a directory with the clone. If I do a push then I always get the following error:- error: failed to push some refs to 'gitosis@localhost:gitosis-admin' To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were rejected Merge the remote changes before pushing again. See the 'Note about fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help' for details. – Ian Smith Sep 27 '12 at 06:00
  • @IanSmith if you have on the server a fresh `gitosis-admin`, and on your local machine a copy of your previous `gitosis-admin`, I confirm you will have to `git push --force` your local repo to the remote repo. – VonC Sep 27 '12 at 06:02
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Solved by VonC by pointing out that (a) I need to initialise gitosis before I can do anything and (b) that the --force command is needed for the push to work.

Ian Smith
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