.. meta::
    :description: Version control system
    :author: Serhii Horodilov
    :keywords: version, control, system, vcs, git, setup

*******************************************************************************
                                   Git Setup
*******************************************************************************

Now that you have Git on your system, you'll want to do a few things to
customize your Git environment. Git comes with a tool called ``git config``
that lets you get and set configuration variables that control all aspects of
how Git looks and operates. These variables can be stored in three different
places:

#.  *[path]/etc/gitconfig* file: Contains values applied to every user on
    the system and all their repositories. If you pass the option ``--system``
    to git config, it reads and writes from this file specifically.
    Because this is a system configuration file, you would need administrative
    or superuser privilege to make changes to it.
#.  *~/.gitconfig* or *~/.config/git/config* file: Values specific personally
    to you, the user. You can make Git read and write to this file specifically
    by passing the ``--global`` option, and this affects all of
    the repositories you work with on your system.
#.  *config* file in the Git directory (that is, *.git/config*) of whatever
    repository you're currently using: Specific to that single repository.
    You can force Git to read from and write to this file with the ``--local``
    option, but that is in fact the default. Unsurprisingly, you need to be
    located somewhere in a Git repository for this option to work properly.

Each level overrides values in the previous level, so values in *.git/config*
trump those in *[path]/etc/gitconfig*.

You can view all of your settings and where they are coming from using:

::

    git config --list --show-origin

Your identity
=============

The first thing you should do when you install Git is to set your user name
and email address. This is important because every Git commit uses this
information.

::

    git config --global user.name "John Doe"
    git config --global user.email johndoe@example.com