Getting Started

Promus allows you to create repositories in a remote server to which you and your collaborators may have access to. There are several scenarios in which you can use promus.

Password-less Connection To Server

We assume that you wish to create a repository in some server to which you have access via ssh from your personal computer. We also assume that the alias given to your personal computer is mac and shall henceforth refer to the personal computer by the alias.

To create a passwordless access to a remote machine we need to let the remote machine get a hold of a public key that may have been created by promus or may have already existed in the mac machine.

To do this use the promus connect command:

promus connect username@server-name server-alias

You will be prompted for your password the remote machine has not been set up with passwordless access. Once this is done you will be able to ssh as you always do minus the password, or you can use the server-alias you provided to promus:

ssh server-alias

Once you connect to the server you can install promus there so that you may start creating your first repositories.

Send a Collaboration Request

If you wish for collaborators to be able to access your repositories you need to let promus know what their public keys are so that they may access your account with a limited amount of privileges. These privileges are minimum and they only include git commands.

To let promus send an email in your behalf you can execute the following command:

promus send request email@hostname 'First Last'

The last argument, namely 'First Last' is not required but if you provide it, then promus will address your collaborator by that name. The email sent will contain contain a link to this documentation and the command that needs to be executed to accept the request.

Accepting a Collaboration Request

By accepting a collaboration request you will simply send your public key so that your host can recognize you. The instructions on how to do this are stated on the email sent by your host. The typical command to execute is

promus add host username@hostname

This has to be done from a working directory which contains the file username@hostname. This file contains a temporary private key which was set up just so that you can send your public key. After this, you will be able to connect to a repository to which your collaborator has given you permission to access.

Note

The email address that you used during the promus setup must be the same email address from which you retrieved the private key. This is done for security purposes. If your promus is set up with a different email address you may ask your collaborator to send you another invitation to the correct email address.

Initializing a Repository

To create a repository in a remote server you will have to first access the server and execute the following command:

promus init <name_of_repository>

Where <name_of_repository> should be replaced by any name you desire.

Note

This will create the repository in ~/git. You may specify the directory in which you want the repository to be created by specifying the option --dir.

Cloning a Repository

To clone a repository you can use the command:

promus clone <server>:/path/to/repository.git

Here <server> should be replaced by the host you are trying to obtain the repository from. The path to the repository is usually ~/git/<repository_name>.git.

Note

If you are a host trying to initialize a repository you must clone the repository as a git user. That is, you must send a request to yourself and add yourself as a host.