Install git on the remote server (if it is not already).

On Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git

Create an SSH key pair (locally):

ssh-keygen -C "[email protected]"

Accept the default file to save the key. If a passphrase is entered, it would have to be entered every time during 'git push'. The following two files would be created in ~/.ssh/

id_rsa.pub (public key)
id_rsa (identification)

Create an authorized_keys file (if it is not present) on the remote server in ~/.ssh/ for the SSH daemon to accept the key:

touch ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Copy the local SSH ID/key to the remote server's authorized_keys in ~/.ssh/ as:

ssh-copy-id user@remoteServerIP

It would prompt for the passphrase if it was entered while generating the key (using ssh-keygen).

Create a local git repository, in a project directory (say ~/project01) that needs to be uploaded to the server. Then create a file in it to test the git transfer later:

cd ~/project01
git init
echo 'testing deployment via git' > example.txt 

On the remote server, initialise a bare repository in a directory (say ~/project01.git):

mkdir ~/project01.git && cd ~/project01.git
git init --bare

Set up a post-receive hook for ~/project01.git on the remote server, to 'checkout' the git files into a remote project directory (say ~/project01, as the local):

mkdir ~/project01
nano ~/project01.git/hooks/post-receive

Enter the following script code in this post-receive file:

#!/bin/sh
export GIT_WORK_TREE=/home/user/project01
git checkout -f master

Make post-receive executable:

chmod +x ~/project01.git/hooks/post-receive

Set up remote origin to the server (bare) repository, at the local end:

git remote add origin user@remoteServerIP:project01.git

Stage the content of the local repository and commit it:

cd ~/project01
git add example.txt
git commit -m "New sample file to test git transfer"

Push the sample file to the server, setting the remote as upstream:

git push --set-upstream origin master

The file should be available on the remote server at ~/project01 (created earlier).

Note: It is recommended against using git as a deployment tool, for reasons as it does not track permissions. Read here.

Read how to remove a directory from the git repository after adding it to .gitignore