Using Git or SVN with a web server

Question

I currently have a site that is in development, it's deployed on a web server, and myself as well as one other developer are actively working on the site. We currently have no version control, periodically we backup the work, but for the most part, we are both just working off the server. I've used both GIT and SVN on projects that are run and compiled locally, but never in a situation where it was deployed on a web server. I'm wondering what the typical setup is. I would like to be able to use SVN or GIT for version control, but also be able to publish from that repository to the live web server. Is there a way this is typically done?

Answer 1

Here is a good tutorial on how to do this w/ apache and linux. It has worked out for me and is really quite simple to follow.

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/howto/setup-git-server-over-http.txt

Answer 2

You would have three checkouts: one for you and your partner, and one for the web server. Whenever you want to deploy, just update the checkout on the web server.

If you want live updates, you could set up a server-side Subversion/Git commit hook that would automatically update the repository for the web server and (if needed) restart the server after every commit (or push, in case of Git). Consult the documentation of the corresponding version control system.