git-clone

GIT-CLONE(1)                      Git Manual                      GIT-CLONE(1)



NAME
       git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory

SYNOPSIS
       git clone [--template=]
                 [-l] [-s] [--no-hardlinks] [-q] [-n] [--bare] [--mirror]
                 [-o ] [-b ] [-u ] [--reference ]
                 [--depth ] [--recursive] [--]  []


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 
           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
            and placing the administrative files in
           /.git, make the  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 , -o 
           Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the
           upstream repository, use .

       --branch , -b 
           Instead of pointing the newly created HEAD to the branch pointed to
           by the cloned repository’s HEAD, point to  branch instead. In
           a non-bare repository, this is the branch that will be checked out.

       --upload-pack , -u 
           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=
           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 
           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)

       
           The (possibly remote) repository to clone from. See the URLS
           section below for more information on specifying repositories.

       
           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 ""]
                           insteadOf = 


       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 ""]
                           pushInsteadOf = 


       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 

DOCUMENTATION
       Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list
       .

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                       12/03/2010                      GIT-CLONE(1)