Git Useful Commands

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Konstantinos Patronas

May 26, 2020·2 min read

Installing Git:

To install git on a RHEL based system:

$ sudo yum -y install git

Configure name and email:

After installing git, you need to configure name and email.

$ git config --global user.name "firstname lastname"
$ git config --global user.email example@example.com

Authenticate with private SSH key:

A good practice is to authenticate with a remote git server using ssh keys, you can generate ssh keys with ssh-keygen and answer the questions:

$ ssh-keygen

After generating the ssh key you need to copy the public key contents to the remote git server, you can find your public key at:

~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Clone a repository (git clone):

To clone a remote repository:

$ git clone <remote repository url>

What it does:

• Download a local copy of the remote repository, including all past changes.

Create a local repository (git init):

To create a new local repository:

$ git init

Get the status of a repository (git status):

$ git status

This command will tell you information about:

• Changes not staged for commit
• Changes staged, but not committed
• Current branch

Stage files for the next commit (git add):

The add command stages changes for the next commit Single file:

$ git add <file>

All files:

$ git add .

Commit files (git commit):

$ git commit -m "commit message"

• commit adds changes to the local copy of the repository, not in the remote.
• files that have not be staged with git add will not be commited

Push changes to remote repository (git push):

$ git push

• git push without parameters will push changes to the remote repository that is associated with the current local branch

Checkout to another branch (git checkout):

$ git checkout <branch name>

• Any changes now on will be staged on this repository
• -b parameter creates a new local repository and check it out immediately.

Tags (git tag):

Tag your latest commit:

$ git tag sometext HEAD

List tags:

$ git tag

Push tags to remote repository:

$ git push --tags

Merge (git merge):

Many times we will need to merge a branch with the master

# Be sure that we work on the master branch
$ git checkout master
# Create a new branch and checkout into
$ git branch new-branch
$ git checkout new-branch
# Create some new files
# vi file.txt etc...
# Stage files and commit to new-branch
$ git add .
$ git commit –m ”a commit message"
# Checkout to master branch
$ git checkout master
# Merge new-branch with master branch
$ git merge new-branch