1GIT-FETCH(1) Git Manual GIT-FETCH(1)
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6 git-fetch - Download objects and refs from another repository
7
9 git fetch [<options>] [<repository> [<refspec>...]]
10 git fetch [<options>] <group>
11 git fetch --multiple [<options>] [(<repository> | <group>)...]
12 git fetch --all [<options>]
13
16 Fetch branches and/or tags (collectively, "refs") from one or more
17 other repositories, along with the objects necessary to complete their
18 histories. Remote-tracking branches are updated (see the description of
19 <refspec> below for ways to control this behavior).
20 By default, any tag that points into the histories being fetched is
22 also fetched; the effect is to fetch tags that point at branches that
23 you are interested in. This default behavior can be changed by using
24 the --tags or --no-tags options or by configuring remote.<name>.tagOpt.
25 By using a refspec that fetches tags explicitly, you can fetch tags
26 that do not point into branches you are interested in as well.
27 git fetch can fetch from either a single named repository or URL, or
29 from several repositories at once if <group> is given and there is a
30 remotes.<group> entry in the configuration file. (See git-config(1)).
31 When no remote is specified, by default the origin remote will be used,
33 unless there’s an upstream branch configured for the current branch.
34 The names of refs that are fetched, together with the object names they
36 point at, are written to .git/FETCH_HEAD. This information may be used
37 by scripts or other git commands, such as git-pull(1).
38
40 --all
41 Fetch all remotes.
42 -a, --append
44 Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the existing
45 contents of .git/FETCH_HEAD. Without this option old data in
46 .git/FETCH_HEAD will be overwritten.
47 --depth=<depth>
49 Limit fetching to the specified number of commits from the tip of
50 each remote branch history. If fetching to a shallow repository
51 created by git clone with --depth=<depth> option (see git-
52 clone(1)), deepen or shorten the history to the specified number of
53 commits. Tags for the deepened commits are not fetched.
54 --deepen=<depth>
56 Similar to --depth, except it specifies the number of commits from
57 the current shallow boundary instead of from the tip of each remote
58 branch history.
59 --shallow-since=<date>
61 Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to include
62 all reachable commits after <date>.
63 --shallow-exclude=<revision>
65 Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to exclude
66 commits reachable from a specified remote branch or tag. This
67 option can be specified multiple times.
68 --unshallow
70 If the source repository is complete, convert a shallow repository
71 to a complete one, removing all the limitations imposed by shallow
72 repositories.
73 If the source repository is shallow, fetch as much as possible so
75 that the current repository has the same history as the source
76 repository.
77 --update-shallow
79 By default when fetching from a shallow repository, git fetch
80 refuses refs that require updating .git/shallow. This option
81 updates .git/shallow and accept such refs.
82 --dry-run
84 Show what would be done, without making any changes.
85 -f, --force
87 When git fetch is used with <rbranch>:<lbranch> refspec, it refuses
88 to update the local branch <lbranch> unless the remote branch
89 <rbranch> it fetches is a descendant of <lbranch>. This option
90 overrides that check.
91 -k, --keep
93 Keep downloaded pack.
94 --multiple
96 Allow several <repository> and <group> arguments to be specified.
97 No <refspec>s may be specified.
98 -p, --prune
100 Before fetching, remove any remote-tracking references that no
101 longer exist on the remote. Tags are not subject to pruning if they
102 are fetched only because of the default tag auto-following or due
103 to a --tags option. However, if tags are fetched due to an explicit
104 refspec (either on the command line or in the remote configuration,
105 for example if the remote was cloned with the --mirror option),
106 then they are also subject to pruning. Supplying --prune-tags is a
107 shorthand for providing the tag refspec.
108 See the PRUNING section below for more details.
110 -P, --prune-tags
112 Before fetching, remove any local tags that no longer exist on the
113 remote if --prune is enabled. This option should be used more
114 carefully, unlike --prune it will remove any local references
115 (local tags) that have been created. This option is a shorthand for
116 providing the explicit tag refspec along with --prune, see the
117 discussion about that in its documentation.
118 See the PRUNING section below for more details.
120 -n, --no-tags
122 By default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded from the
123 remote repository are fetched and stored locally. This option
124 disables this automatic tag following. The default behavior for a
125 remote may be specified with the remote.<name>.tagOpt setting. See
126 git-config(1).
127 --refmap=<refspec>
129 When fetching refs listed on the command line, use the specified
130 refspec (can be given more than once) to map the refs to
131 remote-tracking branches, instead of the values of remote.*.fetch
132 configuration variables for the remote repository. See section on
133 "Configured Remote-tracking Branches" for details.
134 -t, --tags
136 Fetch all tags from the remote (i.e., fetch remote tags refs/tags/*
137 into local tags with the same name), in addition to whatever else
138 would otherwise be fetched. Using this option alone does not
139 subject tags to pruning, even if --prune is used (though tags may
140 be pruned anyway if they are also the destination of an explicit
141 refspec; see --prune).
142 --recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]
144 This option controls if and under what conditions new commits of
145 populated submodules should be fetched too. It can be used as a
146 boolean option to completely disable recursion when set to no or to
147 unconditionally recurse into all populated submodules when set to
148 yes, which is the default when this option is used without any
149 value. Use on-demand to only recurse into a populated submodule
150 when the superproject retrieves a commit that updates the
151 submodule’s reference to a commit that isn’t already in the local
152 submodule clone.
153 -j, --jobs=<n>
155 Number of parallel children to be used for fetching submodules.
156 Each will fetch from different submodules, such that fetching many
157 submodules will be faster. By default submodules will be fetched
158 one at a time.
159 --no-recurse-submodules
161 Disable recursive fetching of submodules (this has the same effect
162 as using the --recurse-submodules=no option).
163 --submodule-prefix=<path>
165 Prepend <path> to paths printed in informative messages such as
166 "Fetching submodule foo". This option is used internally when
167 recursing over submodules.
168 --recurse-submodules-default=[yes|on-demand]
170 This option is used internally to temporarily provide a
171 non-negative default value for the --recurse-submodules option. All
172 other methods of configuring fetch’s submodule recursion (such as
173 settings in gitmodules(5) and git-config(1)) override this option,
174 as does specifying --[no-]recurse-submodules directly.
175 -u, --update-head-ok
177 By default git fetch refuses to update the head which corresponds
178 to the current branch. This flag disables the check. This is purely
179 for the internal use for git pull to communicate with git fetch,
180 and unless you are implementing your own Porcelain you are not
181 supposed to use it.
182 --upload-pack <upload-pack>
184 When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by git
185 fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the command to
186 specify non-default path for the command run on the other end.
187 -q, --quiet
189 Pass --quiet to git-fetch-pack and silence any other internally
190 used git commands. Progress is not reported to the standard error
191 stream.
192 -v, --verbose
194 Be verbose.
195 --progress
197 Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
198 when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This
199 flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is
200 not directed to a terminal.
201 -o <option>, --server-option=<option>
203 Transmit the given string to the server when communicating using
204 protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a NUL or LF
205 character. When multiple --server-option=<option> are given, they
206 are all sent to the other side in the order listed on the command
207 line.
208 -4, --ipv4
210 Use IPv4 addresses only, ignoring IPv6 addresses.
211 -6, --ipv6
213 Use IPv6 addresses only, ignoring IPv4 addresses.
214 <repository>
216 The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch or pull
217 operation. This parameter can be either a URL (see the section GIT
218 URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES
219 below).
220 <group>
222 A name referring to a list of repositories as the value of
223 remotes.<group> in the configuration file. (See git-config(1)).
224 <refspec>
226 Specifies which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. When
227 no <refspec>s appear on the command line, the refs to fetch are
228 read from remote.<repository>.fetch variables instead (see
229 CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES below).
230 The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +, followed
232 by the source <src>, followed by a colon :, followed by the
233 destination ref <dst>. The colon can be omitted when <dst> is
234 empty. <src> is typically a ref, but it can also be a fully spelled
235 hex object name.
236 tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>; it
238 requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
239 The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is not
241 empty string, the local ref that matches it is fast-forwarded using
242 <src>. If the optional plus + is used, the local ref is updated
243 even if it does not result in a fast-forward update.
244 Note
246 When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be rewound
247 and rebased regularly, it is expected that its new tip will not
248 be descendant of its previous tip (as stored in your
249 remote-tracking branch the last time you fetched). You would
250 want to use the + sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates
251 will be needed for such branches. There is no way to determine
252 or declare that a branch will be made available in a repository
253 with this behavior; the pulling user simply must know this is
254 the expected usage pattern for a branch.
255
257 In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
258 address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
259 on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.
260 Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and
262 ftps can be used for fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated;
263 do not use it).
264 The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and
266 should be used with caution on unsecured networks.
267 The following syntaxes may be used with them:
269 · ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
271 · git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
273 · http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
275 · ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
277 An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
279 · [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
281 This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first
283 colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For
284 example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path
285 or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.
286 The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
288 · ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
290 · git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
292 · [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
294 For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following
296 syntaxes may be used:
297 · /path/to/repo.git/
299 · file:///path/to/repo.git/
301 These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the
303 former implies --local option. See git-clone(1) for details.
304 When Git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
306 attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To
307 explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:
308 · <transport>::<address>
310 where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
312 URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
313 See gitremote-helpers(1) for details.
314 If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
316 you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
317 will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
318 section of the form:
319 [url "<actual url base>"]
321 insteadOf = <other url base>
322 For example, with this:
325 [url "git://git.host.xz/"]
327 insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
328 insteadOf = work:
329 a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
332 rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
333 "git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
334 If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
336 configuration section of the form:
337 [url "<actual url base>"]
339 pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
340 For example, with this:
343 [url "ssh://example.org/"]
345 pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
346 a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
349 "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
350 use the original URL.
351
353 The name of one of the following can be used instead of a URL as
354 <repository> argument:
355 · a remote in the Git configuration file: $GIT_DIR/config,
357 · a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory, or
359 · a file in the $GIT_DIR/branches directory.
361 All of these also allow you to omit the refspec from the command line
363 because they each contain a refspec which git will use by default.
364 Named remote in configuration file
366 You can choose to provide the name of a remote which you had previously
367 configured using git-remote(1), git-config(1) or even by a manual edit
368 to the $GIT_DIR/config file. The URL of this remote will be used to
369 access the repository. The refspec of this remote will be used by
370 default when you do not provide a refspec on the command line. The
371 entry in the config file would appear like this:
372 [remote "<name>"]
374 url = <url>
375 pushurl = <pushurl>
376 push = <refspec>
377 fetch = <refspec>
378 The <pushurl> is used for pushes only. It is optional and defaults to
381 <url>.
382 Named file in $GIT_DIR/remotes
384 You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes. The
385 URL in this file will be used to access the repository. The refspec in
386 this file will be used as default when you do not provide a refspec on
387 the command line. This file should have the following format:
388 URL: one of the above URL format
390 Push: <refspec>
391 Pull: <refspec>
392 Push: lines are used by git push and Pull: lines are used by git pull
395 and git fetch. Multiple Push: and Pull: lines may be specified for
396 additional branch mappings.
397 Named file in $GIT_DIR/branches
399 You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches. The
400 URL in this file will be used to access the repository. This file
401 should have the following format:
402 <url>#<head>
404 <url> is required; #<head> is optional.
407 Depending on the operation, git will use one of the following refspecs,
409 if you don’t provide one on the command line. <branch> is the name of
410 this file in $GIT_DIR/branches and <head> defaults to master.
411 git fetch uses:
413 refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>
415 git push uses:
418 HEAD:refs/heads/<head>
420
423 You often interact with the same remote repository by regularly and
424 repeatedly fetching from it. In order to keep track of the progress of
425 such a remote repository, git fetch allows you to configure
426 remote.<repository>.fetch configuration variables.
427 Typically such a variable may look like this:
429 [remote "origin"]
431 fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
432 This configuration is used in two ways:
435 · When git fetch is run without specifying what branches and/or tags
437 to fetch on the command line, e.g. git fetch origin or git fetch,
438 remote.<repository>.fetch values are used as the refspecs—they
439 specify which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. The
440 example above will fetch all branches that exist in the origin
441 (i.e. any ref that matches the left-hand side of the value,
442 refs/heads/*) and update the corresponding remote-tracking branches
443 in the refs/remotes/origin/* hierarchy.
444 · When git fetch is run with explicit branches and/or tags to fetch
446 on the command line, e.g. git fetch origin master, the <refspec>s
447 given on the command line determine what are to be fetched (e.g.
448 master in the example, which is a short-hand for master:, which in
449 turn means "fetch the master branch but I do not explicitly say
450 what remote-tracking branch to update with it from the command
451 line"), and the example command will fetch only the master branch.
452 The remote.<repository>.fetch values determine which
453 remote-tracking branch, if any, is updated. When used in this way,
454 the remote.<repository>.fetch values do not have any effect in
455 deciding what gets fetched (i.e. the values are not used as
456 refspecs when the command-line lists refspecs); they are only used
457 to decide where the refs that are fetched are stored by acting as a
458 mapping.
459 The latter use of the remote.<repository>.fetch values can be
461 overridden by giving the --refmap=<refspec> parameter(s) on the command
462 line.
463
465 Git has a default disposition of keeping data unless it’s explicitly
466 thrown away; this extends to holding onto local references to branches
467 on remotes that have themselves deleted those branches.
468 If left to accumulate, these stale references might make performance
470 worse on big and busy repos that have a lot of branch churn, and e.g.
471 make the output of commands like git branch -a --contains <commit>
472 needlessly verbose, as well as impacting anything else that’ll work
473 with the complete set of known references.
474 These remote-tracking references can be deleted as a one-off with
476 either of:
477 # While fetching
479 $ git fetch --prune <name>
480 # Only prune, don't fetch
482 $ git remote prune <name>
483 To prune references as part of your normal workflow without needing to
486 remember to run that, set fetch.prune globally, or remote.<name>.prune
487 per-remote in the config. See git-config(1).
488 Here’s where things get tricky and more specific. The pruning feature
490 doesn’t actually care about branches, instead it’ll prune local <→
491 remote-references as a function of the refspec of the remote (see
492 <refspec> and CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES above).
493 Therefore if the refspec for the remote includes e.g.
495 refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*, or you manually run e.g. git fetch --prune
496 <name> "refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*" it won’t be stale remote tracking
497 branches that are deleted, but any local tag that doesn’t exist on the
498 remote.
499 This might not be what you expect, i.e. you want to prune remote
501 <name>, but also explicitly fetch tags from it, so when you fetch from
502 it you delete all your local tags, most of which may not have come from
503 the <name> remote in the first place.
504 So be careful when using this with a refspec like
506 refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*, or any other refspec which might map
507 references from multiple remotes to the same local namespace.
508 Since keeping up-to-date with both branches and tags on the remote is a
510 common use-case the --prune-tags option can be supplied along with
511 --prune to prune local tags that don’t exist on the remote, and
512 force-update those tags that differ. Tag pruning can also be enabled
513 with fetch.pruneTags or remote.<name>.pruneTags in the config. See git-
514 config(1).
515 The --prune-tags option is equivalent to having refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*
517 declared in the refspecs of the remote. This can lead to some seemingly
518 strange interactions:
519 # These both fetch tags
521 $ git fetch --no-tags origin 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
522 $ git fetch --no-tags --prune-tags origin
523 The reason it doesn’t error out when provided without --prune or its
526 config versions is for flexibility of the configured versions, and to
527 maintain a 1=1 mapping between what the command line flags do, and what
528 the configuration versions do.
529 It’s reasonable to e.g. configure fetch.pruneTags=true in ~/.gitconfig
531 to have tags pruned whenever git fetch --prune is run, without making
532 every invocation of git fetch without --prune an error.
533 Pruning tags with --prune-tags also works when fetching a URL instead
535 of a named remote. These will all prune tags not found on origin:
536 $ git fetch origin --prune --prune-tags
538 $ git fetch origin --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
539 $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune --prune-tags
540 $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
541
544 The output of "git fetch" depends on the transport method used; this
545 section describes the output when fetching over the Git protocol
546 (either locally or via ssh) and Smart HTTP protocol.
547 The status of the fetch is output in tabular form, with each line
549 representing the status of a single ref. Each line is of the form:
550 <flag> <summary> <from> -> <to> [<reason>]
552 The status of up-to-date refs is shown only if the --verbose option is
555 used.
556 In compact output mode, specified with configuration variable
558 fetch.output, if either entire <from> or <to> is found in the other
559 string, it will be substituted with * in the other string. For example,
560 master -> origin/master becomes master -> origin/*.
561 flag
563 A single character indicating the status of the ref:
564 (space)
566 for a successfully fetched fast-forward;
567 +
569 for a successful forced update;
570 -
572 for a successfully pruned ref;
573 t
575 for a successful tag update;
576 *
578 for a successfully fetched new ref;
579 !
581 for a ref that was rejected or failed to update; and
582 =
584 for a ref that was up to date and did not need fetching.
585 summary
587 For a successfully fetched ref, the summary shows the old and new
588 values of the ref in a form suitable for using as an argument to
589 git log (this is <old>..<new> in most cases, and <old>...<new> for
590 forced non-fast-forward updates).
591 from
593 The name of the remote ref being fetched from, minus its
594 refs/<type>/ prefix. In the case of deletion, the name of the
595 remote ref is "(none)".
596 to
598 The name of the local ref being updated, minus its refs/<type>/
599 prefix.
600 reason
602 A human-readable explanation. In the case of successfully fetched
603 refs, no explanation is needed. For a failed ref, the reason for
604 failure is described.
605
607 · Update the remote-tracking branches:
608 $ git fetch origin
610 The above command copies all branches from the remote refs/heads/
612 namespace and stores them to the local refs/remotes/origin/
613 namespace, unless the branch.<name>.fetch option is used to specify
614 a non-default refspec.
615 · Using refspecs explicitly:
617 $ git fetch origin +pu:pu maint:tmp
619 This updates (or creates, as necessary) branches pu and tmp in the
621 local repository by fetching from the branches (respectively) pu
622 and maint from the remote repository.
623 The pu branch will be updated even if it is does not fast-forward,
625 because it is prefixed with a plus sign; tmp will not be.
626 · Peek at a remote’s branch, without configuring the remote in your
628 local repository:
629 $ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git maint
631 $ git log FETCH_HEAD
632 The first command fetches the maint branch from the repository at
634 git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git and the second command
635 uses FETCH_HEAD to examine the branch with git-log(1). The fetched
636 objects will eventually be removed by git’s built-in housekeeping
637 (see git-gc(1)).
638
640 The fetch and push protocols are not designed to prevent one side from
641 stealing data from the other repository that was not intended to be
642 shared. If you have private data that you need to protect from a
643 malicious peer, your best option is to store it in another repository.
644 This applies to both clients and servers. In particular, namespaces on
645 a server are not effective for read access control; you should only
646 grant read access to a namespace to clients that you would trust with
647 read access to the entire repository.
648 The known attack vectors are as follows:
650 1. The victim sends "have" lines advertising the IDs of objects it has
652 that are not explicitly intended to be shared but can be used to
653 optimize the transfer if the peer also has them. The attacker
654 chooses an object ID X to steal and sends a ref to X, but isn’t
655 required to send the content of X because the victim already has
656 it. Now the victim believes that the attacker has X, and it sends
657 the content of X back to the attacker later. (This attack is most
658 straightforward for a client to perform on a server, by creating a
659 ref to X in the namespace the client has access to and then
660 fetching it. The most likely way for a server to perform it on a
661 client is to "merge" X into a public branch and hope that the user
662 does additional work on this branch and pushes it back to the
663 server without noticing the merge.)
664 2. As in #1, the attacker chooses an object ID X to steal. The victim
666 sends an object Y that the attacker already has, and the attacker
667 falsely claims to have X and not Y, so the victim sends Y as a
668 delta against X. The delta reveals regions of X that are similar to
669 Y to the attacker.
670
672 Using --recurse-submodules can only fetch new commits in already
673 checked out submodules right now. When e.g. upstream added a new
674 submodule in the just fetched commits of the superproject the submodule
675 itself can not be fetched, making it impossible to check out that
676 submodule later without having to do a fetch again. This is expected to
677 be fixed in a future Git version.
678
680 git-pull(1)
681
683 Part of the git(1) suite
684Git 2.18.1 05/14/2019 GIT-FETCH(1)