View & Configure the Local Git Settings in your Docker Container

Git requires very little information before we can start to make local repository changes and then push those changes to GitHub. We just need to tell Git the name and email address of the person contributing changes, as a way to help all repository viewers and contributors understand who contributes what. We provide Git with our name and email address using one or more configuration files.

Git has several tiers of configuration files, and we will explore the three most common:

System-wide — /etc/gitconfig
- Applies to all repositories for all users on a system.
Global — ~/.gitconfig
- Applies to all repositories for a single user on a system.
- Supersedes any overlapping system-wide settings.
Local repository — repository_folder/.git/config
- Applies to a single repository.
- Supersedes any overlapping global and system-wide settings.

Git Name & Email Address Configuration

It is most typical for people to add their name and email address to their global configuration settings, thereby making it possible to perform Git operations on any repository within their user profile. If a few Git repositories within a user profile require a different name or email address combination, it is typical to set those at the local repository level, on a case-by-case basis.

Note

For the purpose of familiarization with the process to configure different Git configuration files, we will configure our Docker environment in a somewhat non-typical, although functional way.

Edit Git Configuration Files

From your Docker container prompt, configure a system-wide Git username and email address with the following commands:

git config --system user.name "Your Name - System"
# Replace 'Your Name' with your first/last name

git config --system user.email "git_docker_container@wwt.com"
# For demonstration purposes, do not replace this email address

Review the system-wide Git configuration file with the following command:

# Display the contents of the file /etc/gitconfig
cat /etc/gitconfig

Notice the name and email values which are part of the Git system configuration file. Right now, these settings apply to all Git repositories for all users in our environment.

Note

Typically, you would simply enter your name without the - System suffix. This suffix will allow us to distinguish which configuration settings take precedence when configuration file overlap occurs.

Configure a Global Git username and email address with the following commands:

git config --global user.name "Your Name - Global"
# Replace 'Your Name' with your first/last name

git config --global user.email "your.email@your_domain.com"
# Replace 'your.email@your_domain.com' with your email address

Review the Git global configuration file with the following command:

# Display the contents of the file /root/.gitconfig
# ~/ is shorthand for the home directory for the current user
cat ~/.gitconfig

Notice the name and email which values are part of the Git global configuration file. Right now, these settings apply to all Git repositories for our current user profile. Effectively, this is all of the repositories in our Docker environment, which means the Git system configuration settings no longer apply.
- Again, you would normally enter your name without the - Global suffix.
To configure a Git name or email for a local repository, make sure your working directory is that of the repository you want to configure (you may display your current working directory with the pwd command). Configure the local repository Git username with the following command:
```
git config user.name "Your Name - Repo"
# Replace 'Your Name' with your first/last name
```
Review the local Git configuration file for the git-repo-1 repository with the following command:
```
# Display the contents of the file .git/config
cat .git/config
```
Notice there is a name value but no email value in the local repository configuration file.

Review Effective Git Configuration Settings

Since we just set Git configuration values in three separate places, we need to determine which values Git will use when we commit changes to our repository. To do that enter the following commands:

# Display the current working directory
pwd

# Display the user name that Git will use for commits within the current directory
git config user.name

# Display the email address that Git will use for commits to the current repository
git config user.email

We set a user.name value within the local repository and Git returns that value (notice the repo name suffix). Since we didn't set a local repository email, Git looks to the next higher level configuration file, the global Git configuration file, for an email address and displays that address.

If we change our working directory such that we are no longer within this repository, we can see the difference in the effective Git configuration for repositories without specific configurations. Use the following commands to navigate to a different directory and check Git configuration settings:

# Change the current working directory from /development/git-repo-1 to /development
cd ..

# Display the current working directory
pwd

# Display the user name that Git will use for commits within the current directory
git config user.name

# Display the email address that Git will use for commits within the current directory
git config user.email

Outside our repository directory we see the both the user.name and user.email values come from the global configuration file (notice the Global suffix after the username).

Change the working directory back to the local GIt repository directory before we continue with the following command:

# Change the current working directory from development to /development/git-repo-1
cd git-repo-1

# Display the current working directory
pwd

We have all of the Git configuration settings in place to start working with our Git repository. Click the link below to continue:

Next Section > Manage Local Git Branches