Git Deployment Procedure

# Web server setup... SSH Keys... You can use ssh keys to log into the server without a password. I assume you have already generated your keys.

Open you public key at ~/id_rsa.pub, and copy it.
On the server, add your key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys.

# On the web server, initialize an empty Git repository. First SSH into the server, then go to the website’s root directory, and run:
$ git init

# Suppress git receive error... Add this to the server’s .git/config file to suppress an error when it receives a push:
[receive]
  denycurrentbranch = warn
  
# Add post-receive hook... Here’s where the magic is. Git hooks are little scripts that run after an event. Set up a post-receive hook to run a script that checks out the files the server just received. Open or create .git/hooks/post-receive and add this:
#!/bin/sh
GIT_WORK_TREE=/path/to/html/ git checkout -f

# Media Temple Example:
#!/bin/sh
GIT_WORK_TREE=$PWD/../ git checkout -f

# The post-receive file must also have correct permissions to be able to execute. Check the permissions and change the permissions if needed, like so:
chmod +x post-receive

# Check out a branch... Create and checkout the appropriate branch that corresponds to your local branch. If this is the dev server:
$ git checkout -b dev
$ git checkout -b master

# Now back to your local machine... Set up git remotes & Add the web server repositories as git remotes:
$ git remote add dev [email protected]:/.../html/
$ git remote add prod [email protected]:/.../html/

# Deploying... At last! You can now use git push to deploy, like so:
$ git push dev
$ git push prod