GIT-CLONE(1)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 (vis-
ible 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 possi-
ble. This is now the default when the source repository is spec-
ified 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 reposi-
tory), but still avoid the usual "git aware" transport mecha-
nism, --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/alter-
nates to share the objects with the source repository. The
resulting repository starts out without any object of its own.
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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 dan-
gling). 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 refer-
enced by the cloned repository, then the cloned repository will
become corrupt.
Note that running git repack without the -l option in a reposi-
tory 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, automati-
cally 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’ com-
mand when given.
--verbose, -v
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 -q is speci-
fied. 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.
2
GIT-CLONE(1)GIT-CLONE(1)--bare Make a bare GIT repository. That is, instead of creating <direc-
tory> 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 cor-
responding 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 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 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.
--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; (See
the "TEMPLATE DIRECTORY" section of git-init(1).)
--depth <depth>
Create a shallow clone with a history truncated to the specified
number of revisions. A shallow repository has a number of limi-
tations (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,
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GIT-CLONE(1)GIT-CLONE(1)
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-check-
out/-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 direc-
tory is empty.
GIT URLS
In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.
Git natively supports ssh, git, http, https, ftp, ftps, and rsync pro-
tocols. The following syntaxes may be used with them:
o ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
o git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
o http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
o ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
o rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
o [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
o ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
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GIT-CLONE(1)GIT-CLONE(1)
o git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
o [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
For local repositories, also supported by git natively, the following
syntaxes may be used:
o /path/to/repo.git/
o file:///path/to/repo.git/: file:///path/to/repo.git/
These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except the former implies
--local option.
When git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol,
it attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists.
To explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be
used:
o <transport>::<address>
where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
See git-remote-helpers(1) for details.
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:
.ft C
[url "<actual url base>"]
insteadOf = <other url base>
.ft
For example, with this:
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.ft C
[url "git://git.host.xz/"]
insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
insteadOf = work:
.ft
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 configura-
tion section of the form:
.ft C
[url "<actual url base>"]
pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
.ft
For example, with this:
.ft C
[url "ssh://example.org/"]
pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
.ft
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
o Clone from upstream:
.ft C
$ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux-2.6 my2.6
$ cd my2.6
$ make
.ft
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GIT-CLONE(1)GIT-CLONE(1)
o Make a local clone that borrows from the current directory, without
checking things out:
.ft C
$ git clone -l -s -n . ../copy
$ cd ../copy
$ git show-branch
.ft
o Clone from upstream while borrowing from an existing local direc-
tory:
.ft C
$ git clone --reference my2.6 \
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux-2.7 \
my2.7
$ cd my2.7
.ft
o Create a bare repository to publish your changes to the public:
.ft C
$ git clone --bare -l /home/proj/.git /pub/scm/proj.git
.ft
o Create a repository on the kernel.org machine that borrows from
Linus:
.ft C
$ git clone --bare -l -s /pub/scm/.../torvalds/linux-2.6.git \
/pub/scm/.../me/subsys-2.6.git
.ft
AUTHOR
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org: mailto:torvalds@osdl.org>
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GIT-CLONE(1)GIT-CLONE(1)DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org:
mailto:git@vger.kernel.org>.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
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