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
15 Fetch branches and/or tags (collectively, "refs") from one or more
16 other repositories, along with the objects necessary to complete their
17 histories. Remote-tracking branches are updated (see the description of
18 <refspec> below for ways to control this behavior).
19
20 By default, any tag that points into the histories being fetched is
21 also fetched; the effect is to fetch tags that point at branches that
22 you are interested in. This default behavior can be changed by using
23 the --tags or --no-tags options or by configuring remote.<name>.tagOpt.
24 By using a refspec that fetches tags explicitly, you can fetch tags
25 that do not point into branches you are interested in as well.
26
27 git fetch can fetch from either a single named repository or URL, or
28 from several repositories at once if <group> is given and there is a
29 remotes.<group> entry in the configuration file. (See git-config(1)).
30
31 When no remote is specified, by default the origin remote will be used,
32 unless there’s an upstream branch configured for the current branch.
33
34 The names of refs that are fetched, together with the object names they
35 point at, are written to .git/FETCH_HEAD. This information may be used
36 by scripts or other git commands, such as git-pull(1).
37
39 --all
40 Fetch all remotes.
41
42 -a, --append
43 Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the existing
44 contents of .git/FETCH_HEAD. Without this option old data in
45 .git/FETCH_HEAD will be overwritten.
46
47 --depth=<depth>
48 Limit fetching to the specified number of commits from the tip of
49 each remote branch history. If fetching to a shallow repository
50 created by git clone with --depth=<depth> option (see git-
51 clone(1)), deepen or shorten the history to the specified number of
52 commits. Tags for the deepened commits are not fetched.
53
54 --deepen=<depth>
55 Similar to --depth, except it specifies the number of commits from
56 the current shallow boundary instead of from the tip of each remote
57 branch history.
58
59 --shallow-since=<date>
60 Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to include
61 all reachable commits after <date>.
62
63 --shallow-exclude=<revision>
64 Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to exclude
65 commits reachable from a specified remote branch or tag. This
66 option can be specified multiple times.
67
68 --unshallow
69 If the source repository is complete, convert a shallow repository
70 to a complete one, removing all the limitations imposed by shallow
71 repositories.
72
73 If the source repository is shallow, fetch as much as possible so
74 that the current repository has the same history as the source
75 repository.
76
77 --update-shallow
78 By default when fetching from a shallow repository, git fetch
79 refuses refs that require updating .git/shallow. This option
80 updates .git/shallow and accept such refs.
81
82 --negotiation-tip=<commit|glob>
83 By default, Git will report, to the server, commits reachable from
84 all local refs to find common commits in an attempt to reduce the
85 size of the to-be-received packfile. If specified, Git will only
86 report commits reachable from the given tips. This is useful to
87 speed up fetches when the user knows which local ref is likely to
88 have commits in common with the upstream ref being fetched.
89
90 This option may be specified more than once; if so, Git will report
91 commits reachable from any of the given commits.
92
93 The argument to this option may be a glob on ref names, a ref, or
94 the (possibly abbreviated) SHA-1 of a commit. Specifying a glob is
95 equivalent to specifying this option multiple times, one for each
96 matching ref name.
97
98 See also the fetch.negotiationAlgorithm configuration variable
99 documented in git-config(1).
100
101 --dry-run
102 Show what would be done, without making any changes.
103
104 --[no-]write-fetch-head
105 Write the list of remote refs fetched in the FETCH_HEAD file
106 directly under $GIT_DIR. This is the default. Passing
107 --no-write-fetch-head from the command line tells Git not to write
108 the file. Under --dry-run option, the file is never written.
109
110 -f, --force
111 When git fetch is used with <src>:<dst> refspec it may refuse to
112 update the local branch as discussed in the <refspec> part below.
113 This option overrides that check.
114
115 -k, --keep
116 Keep downloaded pack.
117
118 --multiple
119 Allow several <repository> and <group> arguments to be specified.
120 No <refspec>s may be specified.
121
122 --[no-]auto-maintenance, --[no-]auto-gc
123 Run git maintenance run --auto at the end to perform automatic
124 repository maintenance if needed. (--[no-]auto-gc is a synonym.)
125 This is enabled by default.
126
127 --[no-]write-commit-graph
128 Write a commit-graph after fetching. This overrides the config
129 setting fetch.writeCommitGraph.
130
131 -p, --prune
132 Before fetching, remove any remote-tracking references that no
133 longer exist on the remote. Tags are not subject to pruning if they
134 are fetched only because of the default tag auto-following or due
135 to a --tags option. However, if tags are fetched due to an explicit
136 refspec (either on the command line or in the remote configuration,
137 for example if the remote was cloned with the --mirror option),
138 then they are also subject to pruning. Supplying --prune-tags is a
139 shorthand for providing the tag refspec.
140
141 See the PRUNING section below for more details.
142
143 -P, --prune-tags
144 Before fetching, remove any local tags that no longer exist on the
145 remote if --prune is enabled. This option should be used more
146 carefully, unlike --prune it will remove any local references
147 (local tags) that have been created. This option is a shorthand for
148 providing the explicit tag refspec along with --prune, see the
149 discussion about that in its documentation.
150
151 See the PRUNING section below for more details.
152
153 -n, --no-tags
154 By default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded from the
155 remote repository are fetched and stored locally. This option
156 disables this automatic tag following. The default behavior for a
157 remote may be specified with the remote.<name>.tagOpt setting. See
158 git-config(1).
159
160 --refmap=<refspec>
161 When fetching refs listed on the command line, use the specified
162 refspec (can be given more than once) to map the refs to
163 remote-tracking branches, instead of the values of remote.*.fetch
164 configuration variables for the remote repository. Providing an
165 empty <refspec> to the --refmap option causes Git to ignore the
166 configured refspecs and rely entirely on the refspecs supplied as
167 command-line arguments. See section on "Configured Remote-tracking
168 Branches" for details.
169
170 -t, --tags
171 Fetch all tags from the remote (i.e., fetch remote tags refs/tags/*
172 into local tags with the same name), in addition to whatever else
173 would otherwise be fetched. Using this option alone does not
174 subject tags to pruning, even if --prune is used (though tags may
175 be pruned anyway if they are also the destination of an explicit
176 refspec; see --prune).
177
178 --recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]
179 This option controls if and under what conditions new commits of
180 populated submodules should be fetched too. It can be used as a
181 boolean option to completely disable recursion when set to no or to
182 unconditionally recurse into all populated submodules when set to
183 yes, which is the default when this option is used without any
184 value. Use on-demand to only recurse into a populated submodule
185 when the superproject retrieves a commit that updates the
186 submodule’s reference to a commit that isn’t already in the local
187 submodule clone. By default, on-demand is used, unless
188 fetch.recurseSubmodules is set (see git-config(1)).
189
190 -j, --jobs=<n>
191 Number of parallel children to be used for all forms of fetching.
192
193 If the --multiple option was specified, the different remotes will
194 be fetched in parallel. If multiple submodules are fetched, they
195 will be fetched in parallel. To control them independently, use the
196 config settings fetch.parallel and submodule.fetchJobs (see git-
197 config(1)).
198
199 Typically, parallel recursive and multi-remote fetches will be
200 faster. By default fetches are performed sequentially, not in
201 parallel.
202
203 --no-recurse-submodules
204 Disable recursive fetching of submodules (this has the same effect
205 as using the --recurse-submodules=no option).
206
207 --set-upstream
208 If the remote is fetched successfully, add upstream (tracking)
209 reference, used by argument-less git-pull(1) and other commands.
210 For more information, see branch.<name>.merge and
211 branch.<name>.remote in git-config(1).
212
213 --submodule-prefix=<path>
214 Prepend <path> to paths printed in informative messages such as
215 "Fetching submodule foo". This option is used internally when
216 recursing over submodules.
217
218 --recurse-submodules-default=[yes|on-demand]
219 This option is used internally to temporarily provide a
220 non-negative default value for the --recurse-submodules option. All
221 other methods of configuring fetch’s submodule recursion (such as
222 settings in gitmodules(5) and git-config(1)) override this option,
223 as does specifying --[no-]recurse-submodules directly.
224
225 -u, --update-head-ok
226 By default git fetch refuses to update the head which corresponds
227 to the current branch. This flag disables the check. This is purely
228 for the internal use for git pull to communicate with git fetch,
229 and unless you are implementing your own Porcelain you are not
230 supposed to use it.
231
232 --upload-pack <upload-pack>
233 When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by git
234 fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the command to
235 specify non-default path for the command run on the other end.
236
237 -q, --quiet
238 Pass --quiet to git-fetch-pack and silence any other internally
239 used git commands. Progress is not reported to the standard error
240 stream.
241
242 -v, --verbose
243 Be verbose.
244
245 --progress
246 Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
247 when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This
248 flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is
249 not directed to a terminal.
250
251 -o <option>, --server-option=<option>
252 Transmit the given string to the server when communicating using
253 protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a NUL or LF
254 character. The server’s handling of server options, including
255 unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple
256 --server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the other
257 side in the order listed on the command line.
258
259 --show-forced-updates
260 By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch.
261 This can be disabled through fetch.showForcedUpdates, but the
262 --show-forced-updates option guarantees this check occurs. See git-
263 config(1).
264
265 --no-show-forced-updates
266 By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch.
267 Pass --no-show-forced-updates or set fetch.showForcedUpdates to
268 false to skip this check for performance reasons. If used during
269 git-pull the --ff-only option will still check for forced updates
270 before attempting a fast-forward update. See git-config(1).
271
272 -4, --ipv4
273 Use IPv4 addresses only, ignoring IPv6 addresses.
274
275 -6, --ipv6
276 Use IPv6 addresses only, ignoring IPv4 addresses.
277
278 <repository>
279 The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch or pull
280 operation. This parameter can be either a URL (see the section GIT
281 URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES
282 below).
283
284 <group>
285 A name referring to a list of repositories as the value of
286 remotes.<group> in the configuration file. (See git-config(1)).
287
288 <refspec>
289 Specifies which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. When
290 no <refspec>s appear on the command line, the refs to fetch are
291 read from remote.<repository>.fetch variables instead (see
292 CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES below).
293
294 The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +, followed
295 by the source <src>, followed by a colon :, followed by the
296 destination ref <dst>. The colon can be omitted when <dst> is
297 empty. <src> is typically a ref, but it can also be a fully spelled
298 hex object name.
299
300 A <refspec> may contain a * in its <src> to indicate a simple
301 pattern match. Such a refspec functions like a glob that matches
302 any ref with the same prefix. A pattern <refspec> must have a * in
303 both the <src> and <dst>. It will map refs to the destination by
304 replacing the * with the contents matched from the source.
305
306 If a refspec is prefixed by ^, it will be interpreted as a negative
307 refspec. Rather than specifying which refs to fetch or which local
308 refs to update, such a refspec will instead specify refs to
309 exclude. A ref will be considered to match if it matches at least
310 one positive refspec, and does not match any negative refspec.
311 Negative refspecs can be useful to restrict the scope of a pattern
312 refspec so that it will not include specific refs. Negative
313 refspecs can themselves be pattern refspecs. However, they may only
314 contain a <src> and do not specify a <dst>. Fully spelled out hex
315 object names are also not supported.
316
317 tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>; it
318 requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
319
320 The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is not
321 an empty string, an attempt is made to update the local ref that
322 matches it.
323
324 Whether that update is allowed without --force depends on the ref
325 namespace it’s being fetched to, the type of object being fetched,
326 and whether the update is considered to be a fast-forward.
327 Generally, the same rules apply for fetching as when pushing, see
328 the <refspec>... section of git-push(1) for what those are.
329 Exceptions to those rules particular to git fetch are noted below.
330
331 Until Git version 2.20, and unlike when pushing with git-push(1),
332 any updates to refs/tags/* would be accepted without + in the
333 refspec (or --force). When fetching, we promiscuously considered
334 all tag updates from a remote to be forced fetches. Since Git
335 version 2.20, fetching to update refs/tags/* works the same way as
336 when pushing. I.e. any updates will be rejected without + in the
337 refspec (or --force).
338
339 Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), any updates outside of
340 refs/{tags,heads}/* will be accepted without + in the refspec (or
341 --force), whether that’s swapping e.g. a tree object for a blob, or
342 a commit for another commit that’s doesn’t have the previous commit
343 as an ancestor etc.
344
345 Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), there is no configuration
346 which’ll amend these rules, and nothing like a pre-fetch hook
347 analogous to the pre-receive hook.
348
349 As with pushing with git-push(1), all of the rules described above
350 about what’s not allowed as an update can be overridden by adding
351 an the optional leading + to a refspec (or using --force command
352 line option). The only exception to this is that no amount of
353 forcing will make the refs/heads/* namespace accept a non-commit
354 object.
355
356 Note
357 When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be rewound
358 and rebased regularly, it is expected that its new tip will not
359 be descendant of its previous tip (as stored in your
360 remote-tracking branch the last time you fetched). You would
361 want to use the + sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates
362 will be needed for such branches. There is no way to determine
363 or declare that a branch will be made available in a repository
364 with this behavior; the pulling user simply must know this is
365 the expected usage pattern for a branch.
366
367 --stdin
368 Read refspecs, one per line, from stdin in addition to those
369 provided as arguments. The "tag <name>" format is not supported.
370
372 In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
373 address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
374 on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.
375
376 Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and
377 ftps can be used for fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated;
378 do not use it).
379
380 The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and
381 should be used with caution on unsecured networks.
382
383 The following syntaxes may be used with them:
384
385 · ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
386
387 · git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
388
389 · http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
390
391 · ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
392
393 An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
394
395 · [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
396
397 This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first
398 colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For
399 example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path
400 or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.
401
402 The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
403
404 · ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
405
406 · git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
407
408 · [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
409
410 For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following
411 syntaxes may be used:
412
413 · /path/to/repo.git/
414
415 · file:///path/to/repo.git/
416
417 These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the
418 former implies --local option. See git-clone(1) for details.
419
420 git clone, git fetch and git pull, but not git push, will also accept a
421 suitable bundle file. See git-bundle(1).
422
423 When Git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
424 attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To
425 explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:
426
427 · <transport>::<address>
428
429 where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
430 URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
431 See gitremote-helpers(7) for details.
432
433 If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
434 you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
435 will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
436 section of the form:
437
438 [url "<actual url base>"]
439 insteadOf = <other url base>
440
441 For example, with this:
442
443 [url "git://git.host.xz/"]
444 insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
445 insteadOf = work:
446
447 a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
448 rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
449 "git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
450
451 If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
452 configuration section of the form:
453
454 [url "<actual url base>"]
455 pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
456
457 For example, with this:
458
459 [url "ssh://example.org/"]
460 pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
461
462 a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
463 "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
464 use the original URL.
465
467 The name of one of the following can be used instead of a URL as
468 <repository> argument:
469
470 · a remote in the Git configuration file: $GIT_DIR/config,
471
472 · a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory, or
473
474 · a file in the $GIT_DIR/branches directory.
475
476 All of these also allow you to omit the refspec from the command line
477 because they each contain a refspec which git will use by default.
478
479 Named remote in configuration file
480 You can choose to provide the name of a remote which you had previously
481 configured using git-remote(1), git-config(1) or even by a manual edit
482 to the $GIT_DIR/config file. The URL of this remote will be used to
483 access the repository. The refspec of this remote will be used by
484 default when you do not provide a refspec on the command line. The
485 entry in the config file would appear like this:
486
487 [remote "<name>"]
488 url = <url>
489 pushurl = <pushurl>
490 push = <refspec>
491 fetch = <refspec>
492
493 The <pushurl> is used for pushes only. It is optional and defaults to
494 <url>.
495
496 Named file in $GIT_DIR/remotes
497 You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes. The
498 URL in this file will be used to access the repository. The refspec in
499 this file will be used as default when you do not provide a refspec on
500 the command line. This file should have the following format:
501
502 URL: one of the above URL format
503 Push: <refspec>
504 Pull: <refspec>
505
506 Push: lines are used by git push and Pull: lines are used by git pull
507 and git fetch. Multiple Push: and Pull: lines may be specified for
508 additional branch mappings.
509
510 Named file in $GIT_DIR/branches
511 You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches. The
512 URL in this file will be used to access the repository. This file
513 should have the following format:
514
515 <url>#<head>
516
517 <url> is required; #<head> is optional.
518
519 Depending on the operation, git will use one of the following refspecs,
520 if you don’t provide one on the command line. <branch> is the name of
521 this file in $GIT_DIR/branches and <head> defaults to master.
522
523 git fetch uses:
524
525 refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>
526
527 git push uses:
528
529 HEAD:refs/heads/<head>
530
532 You often interact with the same remote repository by regularly and
533 repeatedly fetching from it. In order to keep track of the progress of
534 such a remote repository, git fetch allows you to configure
535 remote.<repository>.fetch configuration variables.
536
537 Typically such a variable may look like this:
538
539 [remote "origin"]
540 fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
541
542 This configuration is used in two ways:
543
544 · When git fetch is run without specifying what branches and/or tags
545 to fetch on the command line, e.g. git fetch origin or git fetch,
546 remote.<repository>.fetch values are used as the refspecs—they
547 specify which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. The
548 example above will fetch all branches that exist in the origin
549 (i.e. any ref that matches the left-hand side of the value,
550 refs/heads/*) and update the corresponding remote-tracking branches
551 in the refs/remotes/origin/* hierarchy.
552
553 · When git fetch is run with explicit branches and/or tags to fetch
554 on the command line, e.g. git fetch origin master, the <refspec>s
555 given on the command line determine what are to be fetched (e.g.
556 master in the example, which is a short-hand for master:, which in
557 turn means "fetch the master branch but I do not explicitly say
558 what remote-tracking branch to update with it from the command
559 line"), and the example command will fetch only the master branch.
560 The remote.<repository>.fetch values determine which
561 remote-tracking branch, if any, is updated. When used in this way,
562 the remote.<repository>.fetch values do not have any effect in
563 deciding what gets fetched (i.e. the values are not used as
564 refspecs when the command-line lists refspecs); they are only used
565 to decide where the refs that are fetched are stored by acting as a
566 mapping.
567
568 The latter use of the remote.<repository>.fetch values can be
569 overridden by giving the --refmap=<refspec> parameter(s) on the command
570 line.
571
573 Git has a default disposition of keeping data unless it’s explicitly
574 thrown away; this extends to holding onto local references to branches
575 on remotes that have themselves deleted those branches.
576
577 If left to accumulate, these stale references might make performance
578 worse on big and busy repos that have a lot of branch churn, and e.g.
579 make the output of commands like git branch -a --contains <commit>
580 needlessly verbose, as well as impacting anything else that’ll work
581 with the complete set of known references.
582
583 These remote-tracking references can be deleted as a one-off with
584 either of:
585
586 # While fetching
587 $ git fetch --prune <name>
588
589 # Only prune, don't fetch
590 $ git remote prune <name>
591
592 To prune references as part of your normal workflow without needing to
593 remember to run that, set fetch.prune globally, or remote.<name>.prune
594 per-remote in the config. See git-config(1).
595
596 Here’s where things get tricky and more specific. The pruning feature
597 doesn’t actually care about branches, instead it’ll prune local <→
598 remote-references as a function of the refspec of the remote (see
599 <refspec> and CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES above).
600
601 Therefore if the refspec for the remote includes e.g.
602 refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*, or you manually run e.g. git fetch --prune
603 <name> "refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*" it won’t be stale remote tracking
604 branches that are deleted, but any local tag that doesn’t exist on the
605 remote.
606
607 This might not be what you expect, i.e. you want to prune remote
608 <name>, but also explicitly fetch tags from it, so when you fetch from
609 it you delete all your local tags, most of which may not have come from
610 the <name> remote in the first place.
611
612 So be careful when using this with a refspec like
613 refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*, or any other refspec which might map
614 references from multiple remotes to the same local namespace.
615
616 Since keeping up-to-date with both branches and tags on the remote is a
617 common use-case the --prune-tags option can be supplied along with
618 --prune to prune local tags that don’t exist on the remote, and
619 force-update those tags that differ. Tag pruning can also be enabled
620 with fetch.pruneTags or remote.<name>.pruneTags in the config. See git-
621 config(1).
622
623 The --prune-tags option is equivalent to having refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*
624 declared in the refspecs of the remote. This can lead to some seemingly
625 strange interactions:
626
627 # These both fetch tags
628 $ git fetch --no-tags origin 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
629 $ git fetch --no-tags --prune-tags origin
630
631 The reason it doesn’t error out when provided without --prune or its
632 config versions is for flexibility of the configured versions, and to
633 maintain a 1=1 mapping between what the command line flags do, and what
634 the configuration versions do.
635
636 It’s reasonable to e.g. configure fetch.pruneTags=true in ~/.gitconfig
637 to have tags pruned whenever git fetch --prune is run, without making
638 every invocation of git fetch without --prune an error.
639
640 Pruning tags with --prune-tags also works when fetching a URL instead
641 of a named remote. These will all prune tags not found on origin:
642
643 $ git fetch origin --prune --prune-tags
644 $ git fetch origin --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
645 $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune --prune-tags
646 $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
647
649 The output of "git fetch" depends on the transport method used; this
650 section describes the output when fetching over the Git protocol
651 (either locally or via ssh) and Smart HTTP protocol.
652
653 The status of the fetch is output in tabular form, with each line
654 representing the status of a single ref. Each line is of the form:
655
656 <flag> <summary> <from> -> <to> [<reason>]
657
658 The status of up-to-date refs is shown only if the --verbose option is
659 used.
660
661 In compact output mode, specified with configuration variable
662 fetch.output, if either entire <from> or <to> is found in the other
663 string, it will be substituted with * in the other string. For example,
664 master -> origin/master becomes master -> origin/*.
665
666 flag
667 A single character indicating the status of the ref:
668
669 (space)
670 for a successfully fetched fast-forward;
671
672 +
673 for a successful forced update;
674
675 -
676 for a successfully pruned ref;
677
678 t
679 for a successful tag update;
680
681 *
682 for a successfully fetched new ref;
683
684 !
685 for a ref that was rejected or failed to update; and
686
687 =
688 for a ref that was up to date and did not need fetching.
689
690 summary
691 For a successfully fetched ref, the summary shows the old and new
692 values of the ref in a form suitable for using as an argument to
693 git log (this is <old>..<new> in most cases, and <old>...<new> for
694 forced non-fast-forward updates).
695
696 from
697 The name of the remote ref being fetched from, minus its
698 refs/<type>/ prefix. In the case of deletion, the name of the
699 remote ref is "(none)".
700
701 to
702 The name of the local ref being updated, minus its refs/<type>/
703 prefix.
704
705 reason
706 A human-readable explanation. In the case of successfully fetched
707 refs, no explanation is needed. For a failed ref, the reason for
708 failure is described.
709
711 · Update the remote-tracking branches:
712
713 $ git fetch origin
714
715 The above command copies all branches from the remote refs/heads/
716 namespace and stores them to the local refs/remotes/origin/
717 namespace, unless the branch.<name>.fetch option is used to specify
718 a non-default refspec.
719
720 · Using refspecs explicitly:
721
722 $ git fetch origin +seen:seen maint:tmp
723
724 This updates (or creates, as necessary) branches seen and tmp in
725 the local repository by fetching from the branches (respectively)
726 seen and maint from the remote repository.
727
728 The seen branch will be updated even if it does not fast-forward,
729 because it is prefixed with a plus sign; tmp will not be.
730
731 · Peek at a remote’s branch, without configuring the remote in your
732 local repository:
733
734 $ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git maint
735 $ git log FETCH_HEAD
736
737 The first command fetches the maint branch from the repository at
738 git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git and the second command
739 uses FETCH_HEAD to examine the branch with git-log(1). The fetched
740 objects will eventually be removed by git’s built-in housekeeping
741 (see git-gc(1)).
742
744 The fetch and push protocols are not designed to prevent one side from
745 stealing data from the other repository that was not intended to be
746 shared. If you have private data that you need to protect from a
747 malicious peer, your best option is to store it in another repository.
748 This applies to both clients and servers. In particular, namespaces on
749 a server are not effective for read access control; you should only
750 grant read access to a namespace to clients that you would trust with
751 read access to the entire repository.
752
753 The known attack vectors are as follows:
754
755 1. The victim sends "have" lines advertising the IDs of objects it has
756 that are not explicitly intended to be shared but can be used to
757 optimize the transfer if the peer also has them. The attacker
758 chooses an object ID X to steal and sends a ref to X, but isn’t
759 required to send the content of X because the victim already has
760 it. Now the victim believes that the attacker has X, and it sends
761 the content of X back to the attacker later. (This attack is most
762 straightforward for a client to perform on a server, by creating a
763 ref to X in the namespace the client has access to and then
764 fetching it. The most likely way for a server to perform it on a
765 client is to "merge" X into a public branch and hope that the user
766 does additional work on this branch and pushes it back to the
767 server without noticing the merge.)
768
769 2. As in #1, the attacker chooses an object ID X to steal. The victim
770 sends an object Y that the attacker already has, and the attacker
771 falsely claims to have X and not Y, so the victim sends Y as a
772 delta against X. The delta reveals regions of X that are similar to
773 Y to the attacker.
774
776 Using --recurse-submodules can only fetch new commits in already
777 checked out submodules right now. When e.g. upstream added a new
778 submodule in the just fetched commits of the superproject the submodule
779 itself cannot be fetched, making it impossible to check out that
780 submodule later without having to do a fetch again. This is expected to
781 be fixed in a future Git version.
782
784 git-pull(1)
785
787 Part of the git(1) suite
788
789
790
791Git 2.30.2 2021-03-08 GIT-FETCH(1)