Git and GitLab

We provide here only instructions for debian-based distributions. Feel free to contribute to this document to provide up-to-date information for other distributions (e.g., redhat, fedora).

Run (as root):

apt-get update ; apt-get install git

• Download and install Git from the Git website.
• Optional Git clients (should not be needed if you work within Rstudio):
  • SourceTree

  • GitHub Desktop

    Apparently, this works with GitLab and https.

1. Open Terminal.

2. Set a Git username and email:

   git config --global user.name "Mona Lisa"
   git config --global user.email "email@example.com"
   

3. Confirm that you have set the Git username correctly:

   git config --global user.name
   git config --global user.email
   

   Mona Lisa
   email@example.com
   
   

You may be behind a proxy, in which case you may have trouble cloning or fetching from a remote repository or you may get an error like unable to access '...' Couldn't resolve host '...'.

In such case, consider something like this:

git config --global http.proxy http://proxyUsername:proxyPassword@proxy.server.com:port

The proxyPassword will be stored unencrypted in your .gitconfig file, which you may not want. In that case, remove it from the URL and you will be prompted for it every time it is needed.

1. Access GitLab. Note: You have to access Gitlab from the FUN platform otherwise you may get a 405 error when trying to direcly open https://app-learninglab.inria.fr/gitlab/users/sign_in.

   

2. Click on Sign in:

   

   The long and uggly character sequence, which is here replaced by xxx is your GitLab login/id. You'll need to use it when trying to propagate some modifications from your computer to GitLab.

3. To defind your password, you should go in settings:

   

4. Then, go to the profile tab to define a valid email address:

   

   You will then receive a email with a link to open to confirm your email address is correct. Just open it.

5. Once your email address is validated, it will appear as verified and as your main address in the Emails tab:

   

6. You will then finally be able to click on the I forgot my password button from the password tab:

   You will then receive an email allowing you to reset your GitLab password.

If you clone your repos by simply pasting the GitLab URL, you will be prompted for your login and your password every time you want to propagate your local modifications, which is tedious. This is why you should ask git to remember your login and password as follows

git config --global credential.helper cache                  # remember my password
git config --global credential.helper "cache --timeout=3600" # for one hour at most

With this setup, you will be prompted for your password but it will be cached in memory and they will not be asked again before an hour. You may want to read these instructions to better understand how all this works.

There are two ways of authenticating and synchronizing your local repository with GitLab: through HTTPS or through SSH. The first one is what was just described and does not require any particular software installation on your machine so this is what I recommend for this MOOC. Yet, I like the second one better (although is may seem a bit more technical), which is why I describe it here. It consists in installing SSH, creating a pair or private/public keys, and uploading your SSH public key on GitLab. This section provides with information on how to do this.