1GIT-BUNDLE(1) Git Manual GIT-BUNDLE(1)
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6 git-bundle - Move objects and refs by archive
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9 git bundle create <file> <git-rev-list args>
10 git bundle verify <file>
11 git bundle list-heads <file> [refname...]
12 git bundle unbundle <file> [refname...]
13
16 Some workflows require that one or more branches of development on one
17 machine be replicated on another machine, but the two machines cannot
18 be directly connected, and therefore the interactive git protocols
19 (git, ssh, rsync, http) cannot be used. This command provides support
20 for git fetch and git pull to operate by packaging objects and
21 references in an archive at the originating machine, then importing
22 those into another repository using git fetch and git pull after moving
23 the archive by some means (e.g., by sneakernet). As no direct
24 connection between the repositories exists, the user must specify a
25 basis for the bundle that is held by the destination repository: the
26 bundle assumes that all objects in the basis are already in the
27 destination repository.
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30 create <file>
31 Used to create a bundle named file. This requires the git rev-list
32 arguments to define the bundle contents.
33 verify <file>
35 Used to check that a bundle file is valid and will apply cleanly to
36 the current repository. This includes checks on the bundle format
37 itself as well as checking that the prerequisite commits exist and
38 are fully linked in the current repository. git bundle prints a
39 list of missing commits, if any, and exits with a non-zero status.
40 list-heads <file>
42 Lists the references defined in the bundle. If followed by a list
43 of references, only references matching those given are printed
44 out.
45 unbundle <file>
47 Passes the objects in the bundle to git index-pack for storage in
48 the repository, then prints the names of all defined references. If
49 a list of references is given, only references matching those in
50 the list are printed. This command is really plumbing, intended to
51 be called only by git fetch.
52 [git-rev-list-args...]
54 A list of arguments, acceptable to git rev-parse and git rev-list,
55 that specifies the specific objects and references to transport.
56 For example, master\~10..master causes the current master reference
57 to be packaged along with all objects added since its 10th ancestor
58 commit. There is no explicit limit to the number of references and
59 objects that may be packaged.
60 [refname...]
62 A list of references used to limit the references reported as
63 available. This is principally of use to git fetch, which expects
64 to receive only those references asked for and not necessarily
65 everything in the pack (in this case, git bundle acts like git
66 fetch-pack).
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69 git bundle will only package references that are shown by git show-ref:
70 this includes heads, tags, and remote heads. References such as
71 master~1 cannot be packaged, but are perfectly suitable for defining
72 the basis. More than one reference may be packaged, and more than one
73 basis can be specified. The objects packaged are those not contained in
74 the union of the given bases. Each basis can be specified explicitly
75 (e.g. ^master~10), or implicitly (e.g. master\~10..master,
76 --since=10.days.ago master).
77 It is very important that the basis used be held by the destination. It
79 is okay to err on the side of caution, causing the bundle file to
80 contain objects already in the destination, as these are ignored when
81 unpacking at the destination.
82
84 Assume you want to transfer the history from a repository R1 on machine
85 A to another repository R2 on machine B. For whatever reason, direct
86 connection between A and B is not allowed, but we can move data from A
87 to B via some mechanism (CD, email, etc.). We want to update R2 with
88 development made on the branch master in R1.
89 To bootstrap the process, you can first create a bundle that does not
91 have any basis. You can use a tag to remember up to what commit you
92 last processed, in order to make it easy to later update the other
93 repository with an incremental bundle:
94 machineA$ cd R1
96 machineA$ git bundle create file.bundle master
97 machineA$ git tag -f lastR2bundle master
98 Then you transfer file.bundle to the target machine B. If you are
101 creating the repository on machine B, then you can clone from the
102 bundle as if it were a remote repository instead of creating an empty
103 repository and then pulling or fetching objects from the bundle:
104 machineB$ git clone /home/me/tmp/file.bundle R2
106 This will define a remote called "origin" in the resulting repository
109 that lets you fetch and pull from the bundle. The $GIT_DIR/config file
110 in R2 will have an entry like this:
111 [remote "origin"]
113 url = /home/me/tmp/file.bundle
114 fetch = refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
115 To update the resulting mine.git repository, you can fetch or pull
118 after replacing the bundle stored at /home/me/tmp/file.bundle with
119 incremental updates.
120 After working some more in the original repository, you can create an
122 incremental bundle to update the other repository:
123 machineA$ cd R1
125 machineA$ git bundle create file.bundle lastR2bundle..master
126 machineA$ git tag -f lastR2bundle master
127 You then transfer the bundle to the other machine to replace
130 /home/me/tmp/file.bundle, and pull from it.
131 machineB$ cd R2
133 machineB$ git pull
134 If you know up to what commit the intended recipient repository should
137 have the necessary objects, you can use that knowledge to specify the
138 basis, giving a cut-off point to limit the revisions and objects that
139 go in the resulting bundle. The previous example used lastR2bundle tag
140 for this purpose, but you can use any other options that you would give
141 to the git-log(1) command. Here are more examples:
142 You can use a tag that is present in both:
144 $ git bundle create mybundle v1.0.0..master
146 You can use a basis based on time:
149 $ git bundle create mybundle --since=10.days master
151 You can use the number of commits:
154 $ git bundle create mybundle -10 master
156 You can run git-bundle verify to see if you can extract from a bundle
159 that was created with a basis:
160 $ git bundle verify mybundle
162 This will list what commits you must have in order to extract from the
165 bundle and will error out if you do not have them.
166 A bundle from a recipient repository’s point of view is just like a
168 regular repository which it fetches or pulls from. You can, for
169 example, map references when fetching:
170 $ git fetch mybundle master:localRef
172 You can also see what references it offers.
175 $ git ls-remote mybundle
177
180 Written by Mark Levedahl <mdl123@verizon.net[1]>
181
183 Part of the git(1) suite
184
186 1. mdl123@verizon.net
187 mailto:mdl123@verizon.net
188Git 1.7.1 08/16/2017 GIT-BUNDLE(1)