Activity Team/Git Tutorial

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GitHub

Sugar Labs uses GitHub as its primary server for git repositories. While you are welcome to use other servers, it is on GitHub where you will find the master branches of the core modules and core activities.

Getting started with GitHub

You will learn to do the following:

• Create an account, which you do once.
• Create and add an SSH key, which you do once or if you change system.
• Create a project, a local repository, and identify yourself to git, which you do once per project.
• Add source files, change existing source files, commit changes, push changes, and pull changes, which you do regularly.

Create an Account

Create an account here

Create SSH Key on Windows

To create an SSH Key on Windows, download the latest PuTTY installer.

• Run the puttygen.exe utility to generate a pair of private/public keys.
• Click on the Generate button (Make sure SSH-2 RSA parameter is checked)
• Move the mouse around to generate your key.
• Once you have accumulated enough "heat", the application will generate your key pair.
• Make sure you enter a lengthy passphrase in the Key passphrase field and confirm it in the Confirm passphrase field.
• Click on the Save private key button to save your private key in a file.

Congratulations! With your mouse, select the content of the box labelled Public key and press Control-C to copy your public SSH key. This key can now be used on GitHub to access Git on Windows. Good luck!

Create SSH Key on GNU/Linux

Skip this section if you already have an SSH key in .ssh directory that you trust.

(An easy-to-read tutorial for generating an ssh key can be found here.)

To create a key use ssh-keygen. The following command will create a “dsa” key:

ssh-keygen -t dsa

For creating a “rsa” key use:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

The key will be stored as two files in the hidden .ssh directory.

id_dsa.pub is your public key. id_dsa is your private key. Only you should have access to this private key. Access to the key will grant access to GitHub in your name. For example, here is a list of files in the .ssh directory of user strom:

ls -al ~/.ssh
-rw-------   1 strom strom  668 2009-12-17 21:51 id_dsa
-rw-r--r--   1 strom strom  603 2009-12-17 21:51 id_dsa.pub

You should only need to create a key once, unless you change to another system, or a different Sugar-on-a-Stick drive, or you think your private key was compromised. If you do it again, you must also add the new key to GitHub as described in the next section.

Setup Git Desktop for Windows 7 or later

You can either directly download and install git from here

Or you can set up github desktop, which gives you a GUI to do a lot of things. You can download it from here

Add SSH Key

Log in to GitHub at http://github.com and go here click on 'Add Ssh Key'. Choose a title. Open your public key in a text editor, web browser, or even cat command, and then copy and paste the key into the text entry field. Click on Save.

Once you do this, GitHub trusts SSH connection from your system because your system has the private key, and GitHub has the public key. You should only need to do this once, unless you change to another system.

(With ssh-keygen you can specify the name of your key file. Using this feature is not a good idea, because we haven't tested it. Keys should generally be located in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub or ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub.)

Identify Yourself to Git

Git on your local system must know your email and name. It uses this when you commit a change, so that when you push or mail it others will know who did it.

If you do not use git on your system for any other project, you can configure git:

git config --global user.email "your_email@example.com"
git config --global user.name "Your name"

You should only need to do this once on a system.

Otherwise, configure git in the repository:

cd ${SLUG}.git
git config user.email <email-you-used-for-registering-project>
git config user.name <your-name>

You should only need to do this once in a repository.

GitHub Workflow

Create a Project

You will create a project if you want to create a new activity or other feature which already has no related code. In case you want to make changes to the already present code, you will have to fork the repository(see the next heading)

Log in to GitHub at http://github.com and go here. Choose a repository name, and write a description.

Fork A Repository

A fork is a copy of a repository. Forking a repository allows you to freely experiment with changes without affecting the original project.

Most commonly, forks are used to either propose changes to someone else's project or to use someone else's project as a starting point for your own idea.

Forking a repository is simple, just go to the repository page and click the fork icon and that is it! Now you can see the repository in the list of your own repositories.

Propose changes to someone else's project

A great example of using forks to propose changes is for bug fixes. Rather than logging an issue for a bug you've found, you can:

Fork the repository. Make the fix. Submit a pull request to the project owner. If the project owner likes your work, they might pull your fix into the original repository!

Create Local Repository (Clone)

Clone it from GitHub:

git clone git@github.com:username/${SLUG}.git ${SLUG}.git

Replace ${SLUG} with your project slug value.

Once you do this, you will have a local repository directory named ${SLUG}.git that shares the same history of changes (if any) of the repository at Sugar Labs. You should only need to do this once for each project and system. You can do it again if you need a fresh copy that has no changes.

Keep your fork synced

You might fork a project in order to propose changes to the upstream, or original, repository. In this case, it's good practice to regularly sync your fork with the upstream repository. To do this, you'll need to use Git on the command line.

When you fork a project in order to propose changes to the original repository, you can configure Git to pull changes from the original, or upstream, repository into the local clone of your fork.

Navigate to your repository folder from the terminal and then type,

git remote -v 

and press Enter. You'll now see the current configured remote repository for your fork.

Next, Type

git remote add upstream

and then paste the URL of the main repository (from where you made your fork) and press Enter. It will look like `git remote add upstream https://github.com/Someone/something-anything.git`

To verify the new upstream repository you've specified for your fork, type

git remote -v 

again. You should see the URL for your fork as origin, and the URL for the original repository as upstream.

Now in order to sync with the upstream URL that you added above, you will have to fetch the branches and their respective commits from the upstream repository. Commits to master will be stored in a local branch, upstream/master.

git fetch upstream

Check out your fork's local master branch.

git checkout master

Merge the changes from upstream/master into your local master branch. This brings your fork's master branch into sync with the upstream repository, without losing your local changes.

git merge upstream/master

Note:

1. If your local branch didn't have any unique commits, Git will instead perform a "fast-forward":

2. Syncing your fork only updates your local copy of the repository. To update your fork on GitHub, you must push your changes.

Branches

When you're working on a project, you're going to have a bunch of different features or ideas in progress at any given time – some of which are ready to go, and others which are not. Branching exists to help you manage this workflow.

When you create a branch in your project, you're creating an environment where you can try out new ideas. Changes you make on a branch don't affect the master `branch`, so you're free to experiment and commit changes, safe in the knowledge that your branch won't be merged until it's ready to be reviewed by someone you're collaborating with.

Tip

There's only one rule: anything in the master branch is always deployable.

Because of this, it's extremely important that your new branch is created off of master when working on a feature or a fix. Your branch name should be descriptive

Commits

Once your branch has been created, it's time to start making changes. Whenever you add, edit, or delete a file, you're making a commit, and adding them to your branch. This process of adding commits keeps track of your progress as you work on a feature branch.

Commits also create a transparent history of your work that others can follow to understand what you've done and why. Each commit has an associated commit message, which is a description explaining why a particular change was made. Furthermore, each commit is considered a separate unit of change. This lets you roll back changes if a bug is found, or if you decide to head in a different direction.

In your local repository, find out from git what files you changed:

git status

Add any files that are new or changed:

git add <file path>

or too add all the files

git add --all

Tell git to collect the changes into a commit:

git commit

You should do this for every meaningful set of changes you make.

Note git commit commits your changes to your local repository only.

Request Review

Before you publish changes widely, you can ask others to review your work and comment on it.

git format-patch -1

or

git send-email

You may do this for every set of changes you make.

Push Changes

Your changes have to be pushed from your local repository to the repository at github so that others can see them there.

git push

You must do this for every set of changes you make, when you want to synchronise with other developers or prepare for a release.

Pull Request

In order to request the repository's owner to consider the changes that you made in your repository and include them in the main code, you will need to make a pull request. In order to do this, just open up your repository page, `https://github.com/yourUserName/RepoName`, now you will a line just above the contents saying something like `This branch is 1 commit ahead of walterbender:master.` and you will also thus be able to see a button to create a New Pull Request for the same, then you can review the changes made and the commits to be added in that request and also a message box for the message you would want others to read, describing the changes you made. Then you can proceed to successfully creating a pull request, which will then be reviewed by others. And you can discuss on the very same page regarding whatever needs to be done. And if all is perfect, your pull request will be merged into the main code!

Other Notes

Tags

alsroot taught me about another git feature: tags

git tag -m "Release 36" v36 HEAD
git push --tags