git/Documentation/git-clone.txt

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git-clone(1)
============
NAME
----
git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'git clone' [--template=<template_directory>]
[-l] [-s] [--no-hardlinks] [-q] [-n] [--bare] [--mirror]
[-o <name>] [-b <name>] [-u <upload-pack>] [--reference <repository>]
[--dissociate] [--separate-git-dir <git dir>]
clone: add a --no-tags option to clone without tags Add a --no-tags option to clone without fetching any tags. Without this change there's no easy way to clone a repository without also fetching its tags. When supplying --single-branch the primary remote branch will be cloned, but in addition tags will be followed & retrieved. Now --no-tags can be added --single-branch to clone a repository without tags, and which only tracks a single upstream branch. This option works without --single-branch as well, and will do a normal clone but not fetch any tags. Many git commands pay some fixed overhead as a function of the number of references. E.g. creating ~40k tags in linux.git will cause a command like `git log -1 >/dev/null` to run in over a second instead of in a matter of milliseconds, in addition numerous other things will slow down, e.g. "git log <TAB>" with the bash completion will slowly show ~40k references instead of 1. The user might want to avoid all of that overhead to simply use a repository like that to browse the "master" branch, or something like a CI tool might want to keep that one branch up-to-date without caring about any other references. Without this change the only way of accomplishing this was either by manually tweaking the config in a fresh repository: git init git && cat >git/.git/config <<EOF && [remote "origin"] url = git@github.com:git/git.git tagOpt = --no-tags fetch = +refs/heads/master:refs/remotes/origin/master [branch "master"] remote = origin merge = refs/heads/master EOF cd git && git pull Which requires hardcoding the "master" name, which may not be the main --single-branch would have retrieved, or alternatively by setting tagOpt=--no-tags right after cloning & deleting any existing tags: git clone --single-branch git@github.com:git/git.git && cd git && git config remote.origin.tagOpt --no-tags && git tag -l | xargs git tag -d Which of course was also subtly buggy if --branch was pointed at a tag, leaving the user in a detached head: git clone --single-branch --branch v2.12.0 git@github.com:git/git.git && cd git && git config remote.origin.tagOpt --no-tags && git tag -l | xargs git tag -d Now all this complexity becomes the much simpler: git clone --single-branch --no-tags git@github.com:git/git.git Or in the case of cloning a single tag "branch": git clone --single-branch --branch v2.12.0 --no-tags git@github.com:git/git.git Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2017-04-26 23:12:33 +00:00
[--depth <depth>] [--[no-]single-branch] [--no-tags]
[--recurse-submodules[=<pathspec>]] [--[no-]shallow-submodules]
[--[no-]remote-submodules] [--jobs <n>] [--sparse] [--[no-]reject-shallow]
[--filter=<filter>] [--] <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 --remotes`), 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 is untrue when "--single-branch"
is given; see below).
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
-------
-l::
--local::
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.
git-clone: aggressively optimize local clone behaviour. This changes the behaviour of cloning from a repository on the local machine, by defaulting to "-l" (use hardlinks to share files under .git/objects) and making "-l" a no-op. A new option, --no-hardlinks, is also added to cause file-level copy of files under .git/objects while still avoiding the normal "pack to pipe, then receive and index pack" network transfer overhead. The old behaviour of local cloning without -l nor -s is availble by specifying the source repository with the newly introduced file:///path/to/repo.git/ syntax (i.e. "same as network" cloning). * With --no-hardlinks (i.e. have all .git/objects/ copied via cpio) would not catch the source repository corruption, and also risks corrupted recipient repository if an alpha-particle hits memory cell while indexing and resolving deltas. As long as the recipient is created uncorrupted, you have a good back-up. * same-as-network is expensive, but it would catch the breakage of the source repository. It still risks corrupted recipient repository due to hardware failure. As long as the recipient is created uncorrupted, you have a good back-up. * The new default on the same filesystem, as long as the source repository is healthy, it is very likely that the recipient would be, too. Also it is very cheap. You do not get any back-up benefit, though. None of the method is resilient against the source repository corruption, so let's discount that from the comparison. Then the difference with and without --no-hardlinks matters primarily if you value the back-up benefit or not. If you want to use the cloned repository as a back-up, then it is cheaper to do a clone with --no-hardlinks and two git-fsck (source before clone, recipient after clone) than same-as-network clone, especially as you are likely to do a git-fsck on the recipient if you are so paranoid anyway. Which leads me to believe that being able to use file:/// is probably a good idea, if only for testability, but probably of little practical value. We default to hardlinked clone for everyday use, and paranoids can use --no-hardlinks as a way to make a back-up. Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2007-08-02 06:42:36 +00:00
The files under `.git/objects/` directory are hardlinked
to save space when possible.
+
If the repository is specified as a local path (e.g., `/path/to/repo`),
this is the default, and --local is essentially a no-op. If the
repository is specified as a URL, then this flag is ignored (and we
never use the local optimizations). Specifying `--no-local` will
override the default when `/path/to/repo` is given, using the regular
Git transport instead.
+
*NOTE*: this operation can race with concurrent modification to the
source repository, similar to running `cp -r src dst` while modifying
`src`.
git-clone: aggressively optimize local clone behaviour. This changes the behaviour of cloning from a repository on the local machine, by defaulting to "-l" (use hardlinks to share files under .git/objects) and making "-l" a no-op. A new option, --no-hardlinks, is also added to cause file-level copy of files under .git/objects while still avoiding the normal "pack to pipe, then receive and index pack" network transfer overhead. The old behaviour of local cloning without -l nor -s is availble by specifying the source repository with the newly introduced file:///path/to/repo.git/ syntax (i.e. "same as network" cloning). * With --no-hardlinks (i.e. have all .git/objects/ copied via cpio) would not catch the source repository corruption, and also risks corrupted recipient repository if an alpha-particle hits memory cell while indexing and resolving deltas. As long as the recipient is created uncorrupted, you have a good back-up. * same-as-network is expensive, but it would catch the breakage of the source repository. It still risks corrupted recipient repository due to hardware failure. As long as the recipient is created uncorrupted, you have a good back-up. * The new default on the same filesystem, as long as the source repository is healthy, it is very likely that the recipient would be, too. Also it is very cheap. You do not get any back-up benefit, though. None of the method is resilient against the source repository corruption, so let's discount that from the comparison. Then the difference with and without --no-hardlinks matters primarily if you value the back-up benefit or not. If you want to use the cloned repository as a back-up, then it is cheaper to do a clone with --no-hardlinks and two git-fsck (source before clone, recipient after clone) than same-as-network clone, especially as you are likely to do a git-fsck on the recipient if you are so paranoid anyway. Which leads me to believe that being able to use file:/// is probably a good idea, if only for testability, but probably of little practical value. We default to hardlinked clone for everyday use, and paranoids can use --no-hardlinks as a way to make a back-up. Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2007-08-02 06:42:36 +00:00
--no-hardlinks::
Force the cloning process from a repository on a local
filesystem to copy the files under the `.git/objects`
directory instead of using hardlinks. This may be desirable
if you are trying to make a back-up of your repository.
-s::
--shared::
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 maintenance run --auto`. (See
linkgit:git-maintenance[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 `--local` option in a repository
cloned with `--shared` will copy objects from the source repository into a pack
in the cloned repository, removing the disk space savings of `clone --shared`.
It is safe, however, to run `git gc`, which uses the `--local` option by
default.
+
If you want to break the dependency of a repository cloned with `--shared` 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[-if-able] <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.
When using the `--reference-if-able`, a non existing
directory is skipped with a warning instead of aborting
the clone.
+
*NOTE*: see the NOTE for the `--shared` option, and also the
`--dissociate` option.
--dissociate::
Borrow the objects from reference repositories specified
with the `--reference` options only to reduce network
transfer, and stop borrowing from them after a clone is made
by making necessary local copies of borrowed objects. This
option can also be used when cloning locally from a
repository that already borrows objects from another
repository--the new repository will borrow objects from the
same repository, and this option can be used to stop the
borrowing.
-q::
--quiet::
Operate quietly. Progress is not reported to the standard
transport: drop support for git-over-rsync The git-over-rsync protocol is inefficient and broken, and has been for a long time. It transfers way more objects than it needs (grabbing all of the remote's "objects/", regardless of which objects we need). It does its own ad-hoc parsing of loose and packed refs from the remote, but doesn't properly override packed refs with loose ones, leading to garbage results (e.g., expecting the other side to have an object pointed to by a stale packed-refs entry, or complaining that the other side has two copies of the refs[1]). This latter breakage means that nobody could have successfully pulled from a moderately active repository since cd547b4 (fetch/push: readd rsync support, 2007-10-01). We never made an official deprecation notice in the release notes for git's rsync protocol, but the tutorial has marked it as such since 914328a (Update tutorial., 2005-08-30). And on the mailing list as far back as Oct 2005, we can find Junio mentioning it as having "been deprecated for quite some time."[2,3,4]. So it was old news then; cogito had deprecated the transport in July of 2005[5] (though it did come back briefly when Linus broke git-http-pull!). Of course some people professed their love of rsync through 2006, but Linus clarified in his usual gentle manner[6]: > Thanks! This is why I still use rsync, even though > everybody and their mother tells me "Linus says rsync is > deprecated." No. You're using rsync because you're actively doing something _wrong_. The deprecation sentiment was reinforced in 2008, with a mention that cloning via rsync is broken (with no fix)[7]. Even the commit porting rsync over to C from shell (cd547b4) lists it as deprecated! So between the 10 years of informal warnings, and the fact that it has been severely broken since 2007, it's probably safe to simply remove it without further deprecation warnings. [1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/285101 [2] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/10093 [3] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/17734 [4] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/18911 [5] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/5617 [6] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/19354 [7] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/103635 Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2016-01-30 07:21:26 +00:00
error stream.
-v::
--verbose::
Run verbosely. Does not affect the reporting of progress status
to the standard error stream.
--progress::
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream
by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless `--quiet`
is specified. This flag forces progress status even if the
standard error stream is not directed to a terminal.
--server-option=<option>::
Transmit the given string to the server when communicating using
protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a NUL or LF
character. The server's handling of server options, including
unknown ones, is server-specific.
When multiple `--server-option=<option>` are given, they are all
sent to the other side in the order listed on the command line.
-n::
--no-checkout::
No checkout of HEAD is performed after the clone is complete.
--[no-]reject-shallow::
Fail if the source repository is a shallow repository.
The 'clone.rejectShallow' configuration variable can be used to
specify the default.
--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 `--no-checkout`
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.
--sparse::
Initialize the sparse-checkout file so the working
directory starts with only the files in the root
of the repository. The sparse-checkout file can be
modified to grow the working directory as needed.
--filter=<filter-spec>::
Use the partial clone feature and request that the server sends
a subset of reachable objects according to a given object filter.
When using `--filter`, the supplied `<filter-spec>` is used for
the partial clone filter. For example, `--filter=blob:none` will
filter out all blobs (file contents) until needed by Git. Also,
`--filter=blob:limit=<size>` will filter out all blobs of size
at least `<size>`. For more details on filter specifications, see
the `--filter` option in linkgit:git-rev-list[1].
--mirror::
Set up a mirror of the source repository. This implies `--bare`.
Compared to `--bare`, `--mirror` not only maps local branches of the
source to local branches of the target, it maps all refs (including
remote-tracking branches, notes etc.) and sets up a refspec configuration such
that all these refs are overwritten by a `git remote update` in the
target repository.
-o <name>::
--origin <name>::
Instead of using the remote name `origin` to keep track of the upstream
repository, use `<name>`. Overrides `clone.defaultRemoteName` from the
config.
-b <name>::
--branch <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.
`--branch` can also take tags and detaches the HEAD at that commit
in the resulting repository.
-u <upload-pack>::
--upload-pack <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;
(See the "TEMPLATE DIRECTORY" section of linkgit:git-init[1].)
-c <key>=<value>::
--config <key>=<value>::
Set a configuration variable in the newly-created repository;
this takes effect immediately after the repository is
initialized, but before the remote history is fetched or any
files checked out. The key is in the same format as expected by
linkgit:git-config[1] (e.g., `core.eol=true`). If multiple
values are given for the same key, each value will be written to
the config file. This makes it safe, for example, to add
additional fetch refspecs to the origin remote.
+
Due to limitations of the current implementation, some configuration
variables do not take effect until after the initial fetch and checkout.
Configuration variables known to not take effect are:
`remote.<name>.mirror` and `remote.<name>.tagOpt`. Use the
corresponding `--mirror` and `--no-tags` options instead.
--depth <depth>::
Create a 'shallow' clone with a history truncated to the
specified number of commits. Implies `--single-branch` unless
`--no-single-branch` is given to fetch the histories near the
tips of all branches. If you want to clone submodules shallowly,
also pass `--shallow-submodules`.
--shallow-since=<date>::
Create a shallow clone with a history after the specified time.
--shallow-exclude=<revision>::
Create a shallow clone with a history, excluding commits
reachable from a specified remote branch or tag. This option
can be specified multiple times.
--[no-]single-branch::
Clone only the history leading to the tip of a single branch,
either specified by the `--branch` option or the primary
branch remote's `HEAD` points at.
Further fetches into the resulting repository will only update the
remote-tracking branch for the branch this option was used for the
initial cloning. If the HEAD at the remote did not point at any
branch when `--single-branch` clone was made, no remote-tracking
branch is created.
clone: add a --no-tags option to clone without tags Add a --no-tags option to clone without fetching any tags. Without this change there's no easy way to clone a repository without also fetching its tags. When supplying --single-branch the primary remote branch will be cloned, but in addition tags will be followed & retrieved. Now --no-tags can be added --single-branch to clone a repository without tags, and which only tracks a single upstream branch. This option works without --single-branch as well, and will do a normal clone but not fetch any tags. Many git commands pay some fixed overhead as a function of the number of references. E.g. creating ~40k tags in linux.git will cause a command like `git log -1 >/dev/null` to run in over a second instead of in a matter of milliseconds, in addition numerous other things will slow down, e.g. "git log <TAB>" with the bash completion will slowly show ~40k references instead of 1. The user might want to avoid all of that overhead to simply use a repository like that to browse the "master" branch, or something like a CI tool might want to keep that one branch up-to-date without caring about any other references. Without this change the only way of accomplishing this was either by manually tweaking the config in a fresh repository: git init git && cat >git/.git/config <<EOF && [remote "origin"] url = git@github.com:git/git.git tagOpt = --no-tags fetch = +refs/heads/master:refs/remotes/origin/master [branch "master"] remote = origin merge = refs/heads/master EOF cd git && git pull Which requires hardcoding the "master" name, which may not be the main --single-branch would have retrieved, or alternatively by setting tagOpt=--no-tags right after cloning & deleting any existing tags: git clone --single-branch git@github.com:git/git.git && cd git && git config remote.origin.tagOpt --no-tags && git tag -l | xargs git tag -d Which of course was also subtly buggy if --branch was pointed at a tag, leaving the user in a detached head: git clone --single-branch --branch v2.12.0 git@github.com:git/git.git && cd git && git config remote.origin.tagOpt --no-tags && git tag -l | xargs git tag -d Now all this complexity becomes the much simpler: git clone --single-branch --no-tags git@github.com:git/git.git Or in the case of cloning a single tag "branch": git clone --single-branch --branch v2.12.0 --no-tags git@github.com:git/git.git Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2017-04-26 23:12:33 +00:00
--no-tags::
Don't clone any tags, and set
`remote.<remote>.tagOpt=--no-tags` in the config, ensuring
that future `git pull` and `git fetch` operations won't follow
any tags. Subsequent explicit tag fetches will still work,
(see linkgit:git-fetch[1]).
+
Can be used in conjunction with `--single-branch` to clone and
maintain a branch with no references other than a single cloned
branch. This is useful e.g. to maintain minimal clones of the default
branch of some repository for search indexing.
--recurse-submodules[=<pathspec>]::
After the clone is created, initialize and clone submodules
within based on the provided pathspec. If no pathspec is
provided, all submodules are initialized and cloned.
This option can be given multiple times for pathspecs consisting
of multiple entries. The resulting clone has `submodule.active` set to
the provided pathspec, or "." (meaning all submodules) if no
pathspec is provided.
+
Submodules are initialized and cloned using their default settings. This is
equivalent to running
`git submodule update --init --recursive <pathspec>` 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)
clone: add `--shallow-submodules` flag When creating a shallow clone of a repository with submodules, the depth argument does not influence the submodules, i.e. the submodules are done as non-shallow clones. It is unclear what the best default is for the depth of submodules of a shallow clone, so we need to have the possibility to do all kinds of combinations: * shallow super project with shallow submodules e.g. build bots starting always from scratch. They want to transmit the least amount of network data as well as using the least amount of space on their hard drive. * shallow super project with unshallow submodules e.g. The superproject is just there to track a collection of repositories and it is not important to have the relationship between the repositories intact. However the history of the individual submodules matter. * unshallow super project with shallow submodules e.g. The superproject is the actual project and the submodule is a library which is rarely touched. The new switch to select submodules to be shallow or unshallow supports all of these three cases. It is easy to transition from the first to the second case by just unshallowing the submodules (`git submodule foreach git fetch --unshallow`), but it is not possible to transition from the second to the first case (as we would have already transmitted the non shallow over the network). That is why we want to make the first case the default in case of a shallow super project. This leads to the inconvenience in the second case with the shallow super project and unshallow submodules, as you need to pass `--no-shallow-submodules`. Signed-off-by: Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2016-04-26 01:12:27 +00:00
--[no-]shallow-submodules::
All submodules which are cloned will be shallow with a depth of 1.
--[no-]remote-submodules::
All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the submodule's
remote-tracking branch to update the submodule, rather than the
superproject's recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing `--remote` to
`git submodule update`.
--separate-git-dir=<git dir>::
Instead of placing the cloned repository where it is supposed
to be, place the cloned repository at the specified directory,
then make a filesystem-agnostic Git symbolic link to there.
The result is Git repository can be separated from working
tree.
-j <n>::
--jobs <n>::
The number of submodules fetched at the same time.
Defaults to the `submodule.fetchJobs` option.
<repository>::
The (possibly remote) repository to clone from. See the
<<URLS,GIT 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-clone: 1
include::urls.txt[]
EXAMPLES
--------
* Clone from upstream:
+
------------
$ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux.git my-linux
$ cd my-linux
$ 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 /git/linux.git \
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux.git \
my-linux
$ cd my-linux
------------
* Create a bare repository to publish your changes to the public:
+
------------
$ git clone --bare -l /home/proj/.git /pub/scm/proj.git
------------
GIT
---
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite