Unable to get "pretty" URL aliases working

[Adam Nielsen <adam.nielsen@uq.edu.au>]

Hi all,

I'm attemping to learn Git but I've gotten stuck trying to configure a 
server to host my repositories.

I would like to be able to do this:

   git clone ssh://myserver/project.git
   git push

And have it work, but I keep getting errors about "/project.git" not 
existing in the root directory of my server.  (Which is correct, they 
are stored elsewhere.)

The only documentation I could find about mapping a deep path to a 
"pretty" URL like this was in git-push(1) which stated I should add 
something like the following to a "config file".  I'm guessing it means 
/etc/gitconfig on the server.

[url "ssh://myserver/path/to/repos/"]
   insteadOf myserver:

I'm a bit confused about where the colon comes into it, if I use that on 
the command line I get errors about resolving domain names.  I've tried 
many variations of the insteadOf line ("ssh://myserver/", "myserver:/", 
"myserver/" etc.) but none of them make any difference.  I don't even 
know if this file is being used.

Any pointers about how this URL mapping can be set up?

Many thanks,
Adam.

(Please CC)