Why I had to build a Local Git Server (And How You Can Too in 5 Minutes)

Last year, my team was knee-deep in a project for with strict constraints on working environment. No GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket to set up version control. Just a lot of versions of the same code and a lot of paranoia & frustrations.

At first, we tried sharing code via pre-defined folders (dedicated workspaces to each team member). Predictably, chaos ensued:

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“Wait, is this the final final version?”

“Why does your main.py overwrite mine?”

“Who has the latest version of main.py?!”

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Working Setup

A shared working environment (i.e. a shared cloud compute) for my team which doesn’t have access to any cloud hosted version control system.

After some research, we figured, We didn’t need GitHub—we just needed a central reference repository to sync our work.

The solution? git init --bare — a built-in way to create a lightweight local Git server. Here’s how it saved us.

Now, What’s a “Bare” Repository?

A normal Git repo has:

• Your files (the working directory)

• The .git folder (version history, branches, etc.).

A bare repository has no working directory. It’s just a .git folder, acting as a central hub for pushing/pulling code. Think of it as your own private GitHub- minus the UI (and all the other fancy stuff github provides).

How to Set It Up in 5 Minutes

Step 1: Create the Bare Repository

On your cloud compute (or a shared network drive), create a folder that will act as your server (the place where everyone can push/pull to). You can do this by:

mkdir my-project  
cd my-project 
git init --bare  

(sometimes, you might also need to run chmod -R g+rw /path/to/my-project.git to avoid “permission denied” errors)

That’s it. You now have a Git server (I probably gave you the impression that there are more steps).

Now, it’s business as usual

Everyone on the shared network/drive can Clone and Push

On the machine in the shared network/drive

git clone /path/to/my-project.git  # replace this with path to `my-project` folder you created in step 1
cd my-project  
touch README.md  
git add . && git commit -m "Initial commit"  
git push origin main  

Now, your teammates can now clone/push/pull like they would with GitHub:

git clone /path/to/my-project.git  

I know more than 95% of the time we would have access to Github or some other version control systems. But still this might be helpful when we have:

• Air-Gapped Networks: No internet? No problem.
• Learning: Understand how Git actually works under the hood.

Although this helps with important part of version control, it still lacks:

• Web interfaces
• Pull requests
• Issue tracking
• and all other fancy stuff other cloud based version control system’s provide

But for emergencies? git init --bare is your Swiss Army knife.

Next time you’re trapped in a digital desert, remember: you’re always 5 minutes away from your own Git server.