Setting up a simple auto-deploy with git on Linux

Auto-deploy with git on Webfaction

On server
-----------------
# make a git repo
$ mkdir /path/to/repo.git 
$ cd /path/to/repo.git
$ git init --bare

# make a post-receive hook
# see the post-receive file in this Gist 
# if you're using Node.js
$ cat > hooks/post-receive
#!/bin/sh
GIT_WORK_TREE=/path/to/deploy git checkout -f
^D
$ chmod +x hooks/post-receive

# make the deploy directory
$ mkdir /path/to/deploy


On client
-----------------
# make your repo
# ...
# add a remote to it that points to the server
$ git remote add deploy ssh://user@server.example.org/path/to/repo.git
# first push
$ git push deploy +master:refs/heads/master

# done
$ git push deploy

--
Adapted from: http://toroid.org/ams/git-website-howto

post-receive

#!/bin/sh

# This is a post-receive hook for a Node.js app using 
# Webfaction's quick-install as a starting point.

APP_DIR=/path/to/deployed/app
${APP_DIR}/bin/stop
GIT_WORK_TREE=${APP_DIR}/src git checkout -f
${APP_DIR}/bin/npm install ${APP_DIR}/src/app
cd ${APP_DIR}
${APP_DIR}/bin/start