Solution for Git GUI client for remote SSH

Question

I am a Git GUI user. I don't have an issue using it for my local development. However, now we have a server with a Git repository. Can I remotely push, pull and diff by using the Git GUI client to access that?

Currently, I am SSHing to the Linux server, and use a Git command to do all the Git commands. But I found it very difficulty when it comes to diff. That's why I think is there any solution for me using the Git GUI client access remote repository and do the Git command with a Git client.

I want to be able to mount a remote server in a Git repository. Current we only have to open the Git repository in our local disk. For example, the C:\www\repo.git file. How about if I want to access 10.10.10.10/home/www/.git and do all the Git commands in the Git client?

Solutions are open for OS X and Windows.

Answer 1

Aside from VNC / remote X (which is an obvious solution and therefore not worth putting in an answer), the only alternative I can find is Visual Studio Code's new remote development support.

You can connect to a server via ssh (from within Visual Studio Code), and then Visual Studio Code's Git features work natively. The interface is fairly basic however - in particular there is no history view and you can't rebase, cherry-pick, etc. from the GUI. It's basically for staging commits.

This extension gives you a proper git graph view. It's pretty good.

Answer 2

If your server has it enabled, you can use XForwarding to display a GUI executed on the remote machine on your local machine.

On the server-side, this means that you need to have the proper tools installed (e.g., git-gui, which means that you also need Tcl/Tk installed, which means that you also need the X infrastructure installed).

You also must enable Xforwarding, by making sure that you have a line like the following in your /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

X11Forwarding yes

To use that on your local Linux machine, you would usually use the -X flag to enable XForwarding for a given connection:

 shiro@local:~$ ssh -X gituser@gitserver

 gituser@gitserver:~$ cd repo.git
 gituser@gitserver:~/repo.git$ git gui

On your local OS X machine, you would instead use -Y:

 shiro@applejoice:~$ ssh -Y gituser@gitserver

 gituser@gitserver:~$ cd repo.git
 gituser@gitserver:~/repo.git$ git gui

You need an Xserver running on your local machine, in order to use XForwarding. While this is not a problem on Linux (or OS X), it gets complicated for Win32. There are tutorials on the web for setting up and using Xservers under Win32 (e.g., Xming).