git_and_crontab.md

Automated push to git

These steps are for Mac system.

Create a new key dedicated for GitHub:

ssh-keygen -b 4096 -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github -q -C "your@email" -N ""

Create/update ~/.ssh/config. If you are using separate GitHub hosts, follow the example:

# this is for my public GitHub
Host github.com
     HostName github.com
     User git
     UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null
     StrictHostKeyChecking no
     IdentityFile /Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa_github

# this is for my IBM GitHub
Host github.ibm.com
     HostName github.ibm.com
     User git
     UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null
     StrictHostKeyChecking no
     IdentityFile /Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa_githubibm

Add the newly created key(s) to your system, then list

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa_github
ssh-add -l

Publish your public key to github: https://github.com/settings/keys

Test the connection (must use user 'git'):

ssh -T [email protected]
# or more verbose to see the errors:
ssh -vT [email protected]

Change the directory to your local clone of the repo and run:

git remote set-url origin [email protected]:username/your-repository.git

If you want fully automated git push daily, you need following:

create push_git.sh

cd "/Users/username/workspace/mytechnotes"
git add *
git status
MSG=$(date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
git commit  -m "Auto-committed at $MSG"
HOME=/Users/username git push origin master
echo "Completed! $MSG"

create crontab.txt

MAILTO=username@email
# run during lunch
15 12 * * * "/Users/username/Box Sync/projects/mytechnotes/push_git.sh" >> /tmp/cron.log 2>&1

create or update crontab:

crontab -l
crontab crontab.txt
# or add to existing one
crontab -e