I shift laptops and devices a lot, and mounting storage is not ideal between devices. For my use case I decided I liked a git repo the best for document storage (markdown files)

To be able to access that repo I wanted it to be accessible on my server, from my home via SSH. (Remotely I use VPN to my home network to sync)

When searching for remote Git repositories I mostly see paid alternatives or fullblown Git servers being advertised. That is too much functionality for me, and not necessary.

Solution

1. Create repo on server
2. Clone repo on client(s) via ssh

These are all that’s necessary, and it’s so much simpler than using Git servers.

1. Create repo (on server)

# connect to your server
ssh yourserver
# change directory to your project
cd /git
# create a git repo
git init --bare notesmygoats.git

2. Clone repo on client(s)

# cd into the directory which will contain your git repo
cd /home/notetaker/documents
#git clone the remote repo
git clone yourserver:/git/notesmegoats.git
Cloning into 'notemegoats'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 3, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (3/3), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (3/3), done.

Tips

Use links to create structure

The directory /git/ is a link to a folder in my storage. I like to use links to create logical structure, that’s completely personal though.
If you can SSH into a server, you can use any directory for the git repo, just make sure you replace the clone command with the directory you’re actually using:

git clone yourserver:/home/youruser/mygitrepo

Bare repository

Copied from https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/setting-up-a-repository/git-init

The –bare flag creates a repository that doesn’t have a working directory, making it impossible to edit files and commit changes in that repository. You would create a bare repository to git push and git pull from, but never directly commit to it. Central repositories should always be created as bare repositories because pushing branches to a non-bare repository has the potential to overwrite changes. Think of --bare as a way to mark a repository as a storage facility, as opposed to a development environment. This means that for virtually all Git workflows, the central repository is bare, and developers local repositories are non-bare.