Introduction

Welcome back! The “(Quick) How to” series continue.

Today, we solve huge misunderstood thing: clone private repository from GitHub on your server. Don’t switch the channel 😃

Objectives of the article

1. Show one of the easiest ways to clone private GitHub repository.
2. Train your console skills.

Prepare setup

First, connect to your server (Droplet, VDS, etc) and generate SSH key:

$ sudo ssh-keygen

If you want, choose path and name for your key. I always use default path (~/.ssh) and name, like project_name_rsa.

Next step, create SSH config:

$ sudo cat >~/.ssh/config <<EOL

Host project_name
Hostname github.com
User git
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/project_name_rsa

EOL

Don't forget to change my project_name to yours!

OK! Copy public key to clipboard and go to your GitHub repository settings:

$ sudo cat ~/.ssh/project_name_rsa_key.pub

Add copied public key to Deploy Keys section:

Don’t forget to check Allow write access.

That’s it. 🎉

Let’s clone it!

You may git clone your private repository to server by command:

$ sudo git clone project_name:<user>/<repo>.git

How to update?

For update, type into your project directory:

$ git pull

What’s next?

Get automation of routine tasks on a new server (Droplet, VDS, etc) with Virtual Server Auto Config (or VSAC for short). Just git clone and run it! 👇

foo@bar:~$ git clone https://github.com/koddr/vsac.git

foo@bar:~$ cd vsac
foo@bar:~$ sudo chmod +x ./init.sh
foo@bar:~$ sudo ./init.sh [OPTIONS]

user nginx
+ worker_processes auto;

events {
+   use epoll;
    worker_connections 1024;
+   multi_accept on;
}

http {
    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;

    access_log off;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log crit;
+   server_tokens off;

+   keepalive_timeout 30;
+   keepalive_requests 100;

+   reset_timedout_connection on;
+   client_body_timeout

Photos by

[Title] Nicole Wolf https://unsplash.com/photos/CZ9AjMGKIFI
[1] Azharul Islam https://unsplash.com/photos/9LMGWHqUwnc

P.S.

Questions for self-study practice:

• Which console command may generate SSH key?
• What’s to happen when you run cat ./file.txt command at console?
• Why a sudo command prefix is important?

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