Jenkins git checkout - place .git folder in another place

Question

We make a deploy to client's folder at client's server using Jenkins via VPN of several git repos. I've set the "Check out to a sub-directory option" and "Sparse checkout".

We need to deploy only some files of one common repository (other files are private). But if the .git folder is inside, it is not hard to view other files.

For git it is possible to place .git file into repo folder and specify in this file the place to .git folder, e.g.:

my-repo-folder$ cat .git
gitdir: /home/user1/another-my-repo-folder.git

(see more here about gitdir)

Is it possible to set another place of .git folder for git Jenkins plugin like above?

Upd. Here is the deploy configuration of the described above:

Answer 1

Another suggestion :

git is not a deployment tool (not a good one anyway).

If you need to select some files from your repo, and copy only that to the server, you can :

• write a script (possibly executed by Jenkins), which will run on a build server, which builds an archive with the files you want
• copy this archive to the production server in the client's infrastructure

Answer 2

I've found the workaround: I've created post-checkout script (howto) in local repo, and checkout to a different workspace inside them (howto) and write .git file inside them. As a result Jenkins pull and do sparse checkout by git plugin in local repo, and post-checkout script do the rest.

The post-checkout script:

#!/bin/sh
if [[ "$GIT_POST_CHECKOUT_SCRIPT_CALL" -ne 1 ]]
then
    GIT_WORK_TREE=S:/clients-repo-path/ # remote share should be connected as a drive for Windows
    GIT_POST_CHECKOUT_SCRIPT_CALL=1 # prevent infinite loop
    export GIT_POST_CHECKOUT_SCRIPT_CALL
    CUR_DIR=`pwd`
    CUR_DIR="${CUR_DIR:1:1}:${CUR_DIR:2}" # translate nix path to git for Windows. Remove for linux
    echo "gitdir: $CUR_DIR/.git" > "$GIT_WORK_TREE/.git" # now may run git commands in clients repo
    export GIT_WORK_TREE # git option for checkout
    git checkout -f # checkout to client's path
fi