Question

1. I have a non-empty directory (eg /etc/something) with files that cannot be renamed, moved, or deleted.

2. I want to check this directory into git in place.

3. I want to be able to push the state of this repository to a remote repository (on another machine) using “git push” or something similar.

This is trivial using Subversion (currently we do it using Subversion) using:

svn mkdir <url> -m <msg>
cd <localdir>
svn co <url> .
svn add <files etc>
svn commit -m <msg>

What is the git equivalent?

Can I “git clone” into an empty directory and simply move the .git directory and have everything work?

Answer 1

Given you’ve set up a git daemon on <url> and an empty repository:

cd <localdir>
git init
git add .
git commit -m 'message'
git remote add origin <url>
git push -u origin main