git push does not update files on remote server

Question

I have set up a git repository on my local machine and a bare repository on a linode box. When doing a git push there are no errors but I do not see the file on the remote server. The sequence of commands I followed was below:

On remote:

abhijat@kangaroo:~$ mkdir dev
abhijat@kangaroo:~$ cd dev && git init --bare

On local machine:

krypton:test abhijat$ git init
krypton:test abhijat$ vim app.py
krypton:test abhijat$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/abhijat/dev/test/.git/
krypton:test abhijat$ git add .
krypton:test abhijat$ git status
# On branch master
#
# Initial commit
#
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git rm --cached <file>..." to unstage)
#
#   new file:   app.py
#
krypton:test abhijat$ git commit -m 'test first commit'
[master (root-commit) 3bee148] test first commit
 1 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 app.py
krypton:test abhijat$ git remote add origin abhijat@linode:~/dev
krypton:test abhijat$ git push -v origin master
Pushing to abhijat@linode:~/dev
Counting objects: 2, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
Writing objects: 100% (2/2), 298 bytes, done.
Total 2 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
To abhijat@linode:~/dev
   01a0e08..2273564  master -> master

But when I check on the linode the file is absent:

abhijat@kangaroo:~/dev$ ls -ltr
total 32
drwxr-xr-x  4 abhijat abhijat 4096 Sep  8 10:17 refs
drwxr-xr-x  2 abhijat abhijat 4096 Sep  8 10:17 info
drwxr-xr-x  2 abhijat abhijat 4096 Sep  8 10:17 hooks
-rw-r--r--  1 abhijat abhijat   73 Sep  8 10:17 description
drwxr-xr-x  2 abhijat abhijat 4096 Sep  8 10:17 branches
-rw-r--r--  1 abhijat abhijat   23 Sep  8 10:17 HEAD
-rw-r--r--  1 abhijat abhijat   66 Sep  8 10:57 config
drwxr-xr-x 12 abhijat abhijat 4096 Sep  8 11:03 objects
abhijat@kangaroo:~/dev$ find . -name app.py
abhijat@kangaroo:~/dev$

Am I missing something obvious here? The communication is via ssh and the keys are set up as expected, I can login without a password. However the file does not get copied to the remote server.

Thanks

Answer 1

If you want to both push to the repo and have the files update, you can create a server-side git hook to checkout the files after they've been pushed. In the server side git /hooks/ directory create a file named post-receive and add the following code:

#!/bin/sh
git --work-tree=/var/www/domain.com --git-dir=/var/repo/site.git checkout -f

Then give the file proper permissions using chmod +x post-receive

Note: the above code assumes your git directory and deployed files are in different directories. Update the file depending on how you want things configured.

More info & a detailed explanation here: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-automatic-deployment-with-git-with-a-vps