Copying a local git repository to a different server?

Question

Can a git repository be copied between servers?

In my situation, I'm migrating to a different server, and in a perfect world I could simply secure copy the git directory to the new server form the old server. I am not totally sure if a git repository is machine dependent.

Would any issues arise if I simply copied the repo rather than reinitializing it?

I understand that it's not terribly difficult to git init assuming everything is checked in, but for reasons that are not worth explaining, lets just assume it would save me a lot of trouble to simply copy the directory.

Answer 1

Can a git repository be copied between servers?

Yes, it can be copied without a problem.

Would any issues arise if I simply copied the repo rather than reinitializing it?

No, but of course you can always try it to be sure.

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My recommendation on the other hand would be to do it more properly. On your new server do a git init --bare and from your old repository push everything to the new server and let git handle all the copy (which is also compressed by the way, so it's faster).

A summary would be:

# on new server:
$ mkdir repo && cd repo && git init --bare

# on old server:
$ cd repo
$ git remote add new_server path/to/new/server
$ git push new_server --mirror

Note that --mirror makes the new server a mirror of this server, which means it pushes all the branches, tags, etc.