GIT-CLONE(1) Git Manual GIT-CLONE(1)NAMEgit-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory
SYNOPSIS
git clone [--template=<template_directory>]
[-l] [-s] [--no-hardlinks] [-q] [-n] [--bare] [--mirror]
[-o <name>] [-b <name>] [-u <upload-pack>] [--reference <repository>]
[--depth <depth>] [--recursive] [--] <repository> [<directory>]
DESCRIPTION
Clones a repository into a newly created directory, creates
remote-tracking branches for each branch in the cloned repository
(visible using git branch -r), and creates and checks out an initial
branch that is forked from the cloned repository’s currently active
branch.
After the clone, a plain git fetch without arguments will update all
the remote-tracking branches, and a git pull without arguments will in
addition merge the remote master branch into the current master branch,
if any.
This default configuration is achieved by creating references to the
remote branch heads under refs/remotes/origin and by initializing
remote.origin.url and remote.origin.fetch configuration variables.
OPTIONS--local, -l
When the repository to clone from is on a local machine, this flag
bypasses the normal "git aware" transport mechanism and clones the
repository by making a copy of HEAD and everything under objects
and refs directories. The files under .git/objects/ directory are
hardlinked to save space when possible. This is now the default
when the source repository is specified with /path/to/repo syntax,
so it essentially is a no-op option. To force copying instead of
hardlinking (which may be desirable if you are trying to make a
back-up of your repository), but still avoid the usual "git aware"
transport mechanism, --no-hardlinks can be used.
--no-hardlinks
Optimize the cloning process from a repository on a local
filesystem by copying files under .git/objects directory.
--shared, -s
When the repository to clone is on the local machine, instead of
using hard links, automatically setup .git/objects/info/alternates
to share the objects with the source repository. The resulting
repository starts out without any object of its own.
NOTE: this is a possibly dangerous operation; do not use it unless
you understand what it does. If you clone your repository using
this option and then delete branches (or use any other git command
that makes any existing commit unreferenced) in the source
repository, some objects may become unreferenced (or dangling).
These objects may be removed by normal git operations (such as git
commit) which automatically call git gc --auto. (See git-gc(1).) If
these objects are removed and were referenced by the cloned
repository, then the cloned repository will become corrupt.
Note that running git repack without the -l option in a repository
cloned with -s will copy objects from the source repository into a
pack in the cloned repository, removing the disk space savings of
clone -s. It is safe, however, to run git gc, which uses the -l
option by default.
If you want to break the dependency of a repository cloned with -s
on its source repository, you can simply run git repack -a to copy
all objects from the source repository into a pack in the cloned
repository.
--reference <repository>
If the reference repository is on the local machine, automatically
setup .git/objects/info/alternates to obtain objects from the
reference repository. Using an already existing repository as an
alternate will require fewer objects to be copied from the
repository being cloned, reducing network and local storage costs.
NOTE: see the NOTE for the --shared option.
--quiet, -q
Operate quietly. Progress is not reported to the standard error
stream. This flag is also passed to the ‘rsync’ command when given.
--verbose, -v
Run verbosely.
--progress
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This
flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is
not directed to a terminal.
--no-checkout, -n
No checkout of HEAD is performed after the clone is complete.
--bare
Make a bare GIT repository. That is, instead of creating
<directory> and placing the administrative files in
<directory>/.git, make the <directory> itself the $GIT_DIR. This
obviously implies the -n because there is nowhere to check out the
working tree. Also the branch heads at the remote are copied
directly to corresponding local branch heads, without mapping them
to refs/remotes/origin/. When this option is used, neither
remote-tracking branches nor the related configuration variables
are created.
--mirror
Set up a mirror of the remote repository. This implies --bare.
--origin <name>, -o <name>
Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the
upstream repository, use <name>.
--branch <name>, -b <name>
Instead of pointing the newly created HEAD to the branch pointed to
by the cloned repository’s HEAD, point to <name> branch instead. In
a non-bare repository, this is the branch that will be checked out.
--upload-pack <upload-pack>, -u <upload-pack>
When given, and the repository to clone from is accessed via ssh,
this specifies a non-default path for the command run on the other
end.
--template=<template_directory>
Specify the directory from which templates will be used; if unset
the templates are taken from the installation defined default,
typically /usr/share/git-core/templates.
--depth <depth>
Create a shallow clone with a history truncated to the specified
number of revisions. A shallow repository has a number of
limitations (you cannot clone or fetch from it, nor push from nor
into it), but is adequate if you are only interested in the recent
history of a large project with a long history, and would want to
send in fixes as patches.
--recursive
After the clone is created, initialize all submodules within, using
their default settings. This is equivalent to running git submodule
update --init --recursive immediately after the clone is finished.
This option is ignored if the cloned repository does not have a
worktree/checkout (i.e. if any of --no-checkout/-n, --bare, or
--mirror is given)
<repository>
The (possibly remote) repository to clone from. See the URLS
section below for more information on specifying repositories.
<directory>
The name of a new directory to clone into. The "humanish" part of
the source repository is used if no directory is explicitly given
(repo for /path/to/repo.git and foo for host.xz:foo/.git). Cloning
into an existing directory is only allowed if the directory is
empty.
GIT URLS
One of the following notations can be used to name the remote
repository:
· rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
· http://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
· https://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
· git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
· git://host.xz[:port]/~user/path/to/repo.git/
· ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
· ssh://[user@]host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
· ssh://[user@]host.xz/~user/path/to/repo.git/
· ssh://[user@]host.xz/~/path/to/repo.git
SSH is the default transport protocol over the network. You can
optionally specify which user to log-in as, and an alternate, scp-like
syntax is also supported. Both syntaxes support username expansion, as
does the native git protocol, but only the former supports port
specification. The following three are identical to the last three
above, respectively:
· [user@]host.xz:/path/to/repo.git/
· [user@]host.xz:~user/path/to/repo.git/
· [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git
To sync with a local directory, you can use:
· /path/to/repo.git/
· file:///path/to/repo.git/
They are equivalent, except the former implies --local option.
If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
section of the form:
[url "<actual url base>"]
insteadOf = <other url base>
For example, with this:
[url "git://git.host.xz/"]
insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
insteadOf = work:
a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
"git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
configuration section of the form:
[url "<actual url base>"]
pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
For example, with this:
[url "ssh://example.org/"]
pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
"ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
use the original URL.
EXAMPLES
· Clone from upstream:
$ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux-2.6 my2.6
$ cd my2.6
$ make
· Make a local clone that borrows from the current directory, without
checking things out:
$ git clone -l -s -n . ../copy
$ cd ../copy
$ git show-branch
· Clone from upstream while borrowing from an existing local
directory:
$ git clone --reference my2.6 \
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux-2.7 \
my2.7
$ cd my2.7
· Create a bare repository to publish your changes to the public:
$ git clone --bare -l /home/proj/.git /pub/scm/proj.git
· Create a repository on the kernel.org machine that borrows from
Linus:
$ git clone --bare -l -s /pub/scm/.../torvalds/linux-2.6.git \
/pub/scm/.../me/subsys-2.6.git
AUTHOR
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org[1]>
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list
<git@vger.kernel.org[2]>.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
NOTES
1. torvalds@osdl.org
mailto:torvalds@osdl.org
2. git@vger.kernel.org
mailto:git@vger.kernel.org
Git 1.7.0.4 12/18/2010 GIT-CLONE(1)
