1GIT-CLONE(1) Git Manual GIT-CLONE(1)
2
6 git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory
7
9 git clone [--template=<template_directory>]
10 [-l] [-s] [--no-hardlinks] [-q] [-n] [--bare] [--mirror]
11 [-o <name>] [-b <name>] [-u <upload-pack>] [--reference <repository>]
12 [--depth <depth>] [--recursive|--recurse-submodules] [--] <repository>
13 [<directory>]
14
17 Clones a repository into a newly created directory, creates
18 remote-tracking branches for each branch in the cloned repository
19 (visible using git branch -r), and creates and checks out an initial
20 branch that is forked from the cloned repository’s currently active
21 branch.
22 After the clone, a plain git fetch without arguments will update all
24 the remote-tracking branches, and a git pull without arguments will in
25 addition merge the remote master branch into the current master branch,
26 if any.
27 This default configuration is achieved by creating references to the
29 remote branch heads under refs/remotes/origin and by initializing
30 remote.origin.url and remote.origin.fetch configuration variables.
31
33 --local, -l
34 When the repository to clone from is on a local machine, this flag
35 bypasses the normal "git aware" transport mechanism and clones the
36 repository by making a copy of HEAD and everything under objects
37 and refs directories. The files under .git/objects/ directory are
38 hardlinked to save space when possible. This is now the default
39 when the source repository is specified with /path/to/repo syntax,
40 so it essentially is a no-op option. To force copying instead of
41 hardlinking (which may be desirable if you are trying to make a
42 back-up of your repository), but still avoid the usual "git aware"
43 transport mechanism, --no-hardlinks can be used.
44 --no-hardlinks
46 Optimize the cloning process from a repository on a local
47 filesystem by copying files under .git/objects directory.
48 --shared, -s
50 When the repository to clone is on the local machine, instead of
51 using hard links, automatically setup .git/objects/info/alternates
52 to share the objects with the source repository. The resulting
53 repository starts out without any object of its own.
54 NOTE: this is a possibly dangerous operation; do not use it unless
56 you understand what it does. If you clone your repository using
57 this option and then delete branches (or use any other git command
58 that makes any existing commit unreferenced) in the source
59 repository, some objects may become unreferenced (or dangling).
60 These objects may be removed by normal git operations (such as git
61 commit) which automatically call git gc --auto. (See git-gc(1).) If
62 these objects are removed and were referenced by the cloned
63 repository, then the cloned repository will become corrupt.
64 Note that running git repack without the -l option in a repository
66 cloned with -s will copy objects from the source repository into a
67 pack in the cloned repository, removing the disk space savings of
68 clone -s. It is safe, however, to run git gc, which uses the -l
69 option by default.
70 If you want to break the dependency of a repository cloned with -s
72 on its source repository, you can simply run git repack -a to copy
73 all objects from the source repository into a pack in the cloned
74 repository.
75 --reference <repository>
77 If the reference repository is on the local machine, automatically
78 setup .git/objects/info/alternates to obtain objects from the
79 reference repository. Using an already existing repository as an
80 alternate will require fewer objects to be copied from the
81 repository being cloned, reducing network and local storage costs.
82 NOTE: see the NOTE for the --shared option.
84 --quiet, -q
86 Operate quietly. Progress is not reported to the standard error
87 stream. This flag is also passed to the ‘rsync’ command when given.
88 --verbose, -v
90 Run verbosely. Does not affect the reporting of progress status to
91 the standard error stream.
92 --progress
94 Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
95 when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This
96 flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is
97 not directed to a terminal.
98 --no-checkout, -n
100 No checkout of HEAD is performed after the clone is complete.
101 --bare
103 Make a bare GIT repository. That is, instead of creating
104 <directory> and placing the administrative files in
105 <directory>/.git, make the <directory> itself the $GIT_DIR. This
106 obviously implies the -n because there is nowhere to check out the
107 working tree. Also the branch heads at the remote are copied
108 directly to corresponding local branch heads, without mapping them
109 to refs/remotes/origin/. When this option is used, neither
110 remote-tracking branches nor the related configuration variables
111 are created.
112 --mirror
114 Set up a mirror of the source repository. This implies --bare.
115 Compared to --bare, --mirror not only maps local branches of the
116 source to local branches of the target, it maps all refs (including
117 remote-tracking branches, notes etc.) and sets up a refspec
118 configuration such that all these refs are overwritten by a git
119 remote update in the target repository.
120 --origin <name>, -o <name>
122 Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the
123 upstream repository, use <name>.
124 --branch <name>, -b <name>
126 Instead of pointing the newly created HEAD to the branch pointed to
127 by the cloned repository’s HEAD, point to <name> branch instead. In
128 a non-bare repository, this is the branch that will be checked out.
129 --upload-pack <upload-pack>, -u <upload-pack>
131 When given, and the repository to clone from is accessed via ssh,
132 this specifies a non-default path for the command run on the other
133 end.
134 --template=<template_directory>
136 Specify the directory from which templates will be used; (See the
137 "TEMPLATE DIRECTORY" section of git-init(1).)
138 --depth <depth>
140 Create a shallow clone with a history truncated to the specified
141 number of revisions. A shallow repository has a number of
142 limitations (you cannot clone or fetch from it, nor push from nor
143 into it), but is adequate if you are only interested in the recent
144 history of a large project with a long history, and would want to
145 send in fixes as patches.
146 --recursive, --recurse-submodules
148 After the clone is created, initialize all submodules within, using
149 their default settings. This is equivalent to running git submodule
150 update --init --recursive immediately after the clone is finished.
151 This option is ignored if the cloned repository does not have a
152 worktree/checkout (i.e. if any of --no-checkout/-n, --bare, or
153 --mirror is given)
154 <repository>
156 The (possibly remote) repository to clone from. See the URLS
157 section below for more information on specifying repositories.
158 <directory>
160 The name of a new directory to clone into. The "humanish" part of
161 the source repository is used if no directory is explicitly given
162 (repo for /path/to/repo.git and foo for host.xz:foo/.git). Cloning
163 into an existing directory is only allowed if the directory is
164 empty.
165
167 In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
168 address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
169 on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.
170 Git natively supports ssh, git, http, https, ftp, ftps, and rsync
172 protocols. The following syntaxes may be used with them:
173 · ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
175 · git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
177 · http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
179 · ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
181 · rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
183 An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
185 · [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
187 The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
189 · ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
191 · git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
193 · [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
195 For local repositories, also supported by git natively, the following
197 syntaxes may be used:
198 · /path/to/repo.git/
200 · file:///path/to/repo.git/
202 These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except the former implies
204 --local option.
205 When git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
207 attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To
208 explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:
209 · <transport>::<address>
211 where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
213 URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
214 See git-remote-helpers(1) for details.
215 If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
217 you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
218 will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
219 section of the form:
220 [url "<actual url base>"]
222 insteadOf = <other url base>
223 For example, with this:
226 [url "git://git.host.xz/"]
228 insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
229 insteadOf = work:
230 a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
233 rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
234 "git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
235 If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
237 configuration section of the form:
238 [url "<actual url base>"]
240 pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
241 For example, with this:
244 [url "ssh://example.org/"]
246 pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
247 a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
250 "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
251 use the original URL.
252
254 · Clone from upstream:
255 $ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux-2.6 my2.6
257 $ cd my2.6
258 $ make
259 · Make a local clone that borrows from the current directory, without
262 checking things out:
263 $ git clone -l -s -n . ../copy
265 $ cd ../copy
266 $ git show-branch
267 · Clone from upstream while borrowing from an existing local
270 directory:
271 $ git clone --reference my2.6 \
273 git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux-2.7 \
274 my2.7
275 $ cd my2.7
276 · Create a bare repository to publish your changes to the public:
279 $ git clone --bare -l /home/proj/.git /pub/scm/proj.git
281 · Create a repository on the kernel.org machine that borrows from
284 Linus:
285 $ git clone --bare -l -s /pub/scm/.../torvalds/linux-2.6.git \
287 /pub/scm/.../me/subsys-2.6.git
288
291 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org[1]>
292
294 Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list
295 <git@vger.kernel.org[2]>.
296
298 Part of the git(1) suite
299
301 1. torvalds@osdl.org
302 mailto:torvalds@osdl.org
303 2. git@vger.kernel.org
305 mailto:git@vger.kernel.org
306Git 1.7.4.4 04/11/2011 GIT-CLONE(1)