Git Clone from Windows to Linux through Local Network

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Clik here to view.Working on a project at Sanmark Solutions, I encountered a situation where I needed to clone a Git repository placed in a shared directory in a Windows machine into a working directory in a Linux machine. First I tried to do it with SSH, but I wasn’t successful. I guess that’s because I am not much experienced with that protocol. Then I decided to access the directory in Windows with Samba and mount it on local file system, and then clone, pull, and push from and to it considering it as a local location. This is how I did it:

Step 1: Install the required software.

We need Samba to connect to Windows shared directories.

sudo apt-get install samba
sudo apt-get install system-config-samba

Step 2: Create a mount point.

We need a place in our file system to mount the Windows directory.

sudo mkdir /mnt/directory_from_windows

Step 3: Mount the directory from Windows onto the created mount point.

We need to be able to access the directory from Windows through our mount point.

sudo mount -t cifs -o username=WindowsUsername,password=WindowsPassword //IPAddressToWindowsMachine/SharedDirectoryFromWindows /mnt/directory_from_windows

Here are what various flags to mount application in above command mean (Extracted from man pages.):

-t, --types

“The argument following the -t is used to indicate the file system type.”. So CIFS is the file system types used here.

-o, --options

“Options are specified with a -o flag followed by a comma separated string of options.”. We use the options username and password here.

Step 4: Verify the Windows shared directory is successfully mounted.

Do

cd /mnt/directory_from_windows
ls

and check whether you can see files from your Windows shared directory. If that works, you can go clone your Git repository, if not, you’ll have to troubleshoot.

Step 5: Clone your Git repository.

Go to the place where you need to create your working copy of the Git repository. In this example, I am assuming it’s your home directory.

cd ~

Then issue the command to perform the clone.

git clone /mnt/directory_from_windows

Voila!

Bonus Step: Unmount mounted Windows shared directory.

If you need to unmount your mounted Windows shared directory, do:

sudo umount -a -t cifs -l

Sources.

1. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2026977
2. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/74626/how-do-you-force-a-cifs-connection-to-unmount

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