git-remote-iroh

Fetch and push git repositories directly between machines — no hosting service, no daemon, no port forwarding, no VPN.

# machine A
$ git push iroh:// main
    git clone iroh://endpoint2rgc…/8f00ba4…      # <- prints this, waits

# machine B, anywhere in the world
$ git clone iroh://endpoint2rgc…/8f00ba4…        # A's push completes

git-remote-iroh is a git remote helper that tunnels git's native smart protocol over iroh — QUIC connections with NAT hole-punching, relay fallback, and end-to-end encryption. Because the real git upload-pack and git receive-pack run on each end, transfers get full want/have negotiation and server-built thin packs: fetching and pushing over iroh:// moves exactly the same bytes as over ssh://, between any two machines that can each reach the internet (or each other).

Install

Prebuilt binary (Linux, Apple-silicon macOS; installs to ~/.local/bin):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/magik6k/git-remote-iroh/main/install.sh | sh

With cargo, from source (any platform, rust ≥ 1.91):

cargo install --git https://github.com/magik6k/git-remote-iroh

Or grab a binary from the releases page. However it gets there — once git-remote-iroh is on PATH, git handles iroh:// URLs by itself.

Usage

One-shot transfer

git push iroh:// (with a bare URL) offers the repository for a single fetch. It prints a URL, blocks until the other side has pulled, and then reports the push as done:

# machine A
$ git push iroh:// main

# machine B — either of:
$ git clone iroh://endpoint…/8f00ba4… myrepo
$ git pull iroh://endpoint…/8f00ba4… main

Nothing is stored anywhere in between: the two machines talk directly (through an iroh relay only when hole-punching fails, still encrypted end to end).

Serve a repository as a regular remote

# machine A
$ git-remote-iroh serve --writable
iroh://endpoint2rgc…/8f00ba4…

# machine B
$ git remote add laptop iroh://endpoint2rgc…/8f00ba4…
$ git fetch laptop
$ git push laptop main

The repository's identity lives in .git/iroh/, so the URL stays the same across serve sessions — set it up as a named remote once and sync whenever serve is running on the other side.

Commands and options

Security model

• The URL is a bearer capability. It contains the endpoint's public key and a random 128-bit secret; anyone who has the full URL can fetch the repository (and push, with --writable). Share it like a password.
• Connections are authenticated and end-to-end encrypted by iroh (TLS over QUIC, keyed by the endpoint's ed25519 identity). Relays forward opaque ciphertext and cannot read repository data.
• The identity key and secret are stored with owner-only permissions in .git/iroh/. Delete that directory (or use --ephemeral) to rotate the URL.

Notes

• Pushing into a repository with a working tree is refused for the checked-out branch unless that repo sets git config receive.denyCurrentBranch updateInstead (serve prints a hint). Pushing to other branches, or into a bare repo, just works.
• Offer-mode git push iroh:// reporting ok means one peer fetched the offered refs — a way to hand a repo over, not durable storage.
• NAT traversal uses iroh's default relay and discovery infrastructure (run by number 0); on a shared LAN everything also works fully offline.

How it works

serve binds an iroh endpoint and prints iroh://<ticket>/<secret>. When git sees an iroh:// URL it invokes this helper, which advertises the connect capability, dials the ticket, authenticates with the secret, and then simply shovels bytes between git and the git upload-pack / git receive-pack spawned on the serving side. Offer mode (git push iroh://) is sugar that serves the repository for exactly one fetch. The stream-bridging approach follows n0's dumbpipe.

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.