create.sh creates a git repository which automatically publishs its contents over a webserver when receiving changes from its remotes. It's like gh-pages, but on your own server and without an extra branch.

create.sh

#!/bin/bash

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
        echo "Supply a name for the repo/site to publish"
        exit 1;
fi

URLROOT=gitpages.mydomain.com
ROOT=/home/www/gitpages.mydomain.com
REPOS=$ROOT/repositories
HTDOCS=$ROOT/htdocs
NAME=$1
REMOTEREPO=$REPOS/$NAME
LIVEREPO=$HTDOCS/$NAME
GITUSERANDHOST=git@mydomain.com

echo "== Publish Git based Site on $URLROOT =="

echo "-- Create remote repository $NAME"
mkdir $REMOTEREPO
cd $REMOTEREPO
git init --bare

echo "-- Create post-update hook for $NAME"
cat <<EOF > $REMOTEREPO/hooks/post-update
#!/bin/sh

echo
echo "**** Pulling changes into $NAME Live [$URLROOT post-update hook]"
echo

cd $LIVEREPO || exit
unset GIT_DIR
git pull

exec git-update-server-info
EOF

chmod +x $REMOTEREPO/hooks/post-update


echo "-- Clone live repository for $NAME"
cd $HTDOCS
git clone $REMOTEREPO $NAME
cd $LIVEREPO
git pull

echo ""
echo "== Site $NAME published! =="
echo "Clone the remote repository, commit some files and you're good to go"
echo ""
echo "-- Site available on: $URLROOT/$NAME"
echo "-- Clone this:        $GITUSERANDHOST:$REMOTEREPO"

gitpages.mydomain.com.nginx

# nginx configuration example
server {
        listen 80;
        server_name gitpages.mydomain.com;

        root    /home/www/gitpages.mydomain.com/htdocs;
        index   index.html;

        access_log      /home/www/gitpages.mydomain.com/logs/access.log;
        error_log       /home/www/gitpages.mydomain.com/logs/error.log;

        location ~ .git {
                deny all;
                return 404;
        }
}