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 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 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 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 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 -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 --atomic
48 Use an atomic transaction to update local refs. Either all refs are
49 updated, or on error, no refs are updated.
50 --depth=<depth>
52 Limit fetching to the specified number of commits from the tip of
53 each remote branch history. If fetching to a shallow repository
54 created by git clone with --depth=<depth> option (see git-
55 clone(1)), deepen or shorten the history to the specified number of
56 commits. Tags for the deepened commits are not fetched.
57 --deepen=<depth>
59 Similar to --depth, except it specifies the number of commits from
60 the current shallow boundary instead of from the tip of each remote
61 branch history.
62 --shallow-since=<date>
64 Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to include
65 all reachable commits after <date>.
66 --shallow-exclude=<revision>
68 Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to exclude
69 commits reachable from a specified remote branch or tag. This
70 option can be specified multiple times.
71 --unshallow
73 If the source repository is complete, convert a shallow repository
74 to a complete one, removing all the limitations imposed by shallow
75 repositories.
76 If the source repository is shallow, fetch as much as possible so
78 that the current repository has the same history as the source
79 repository.
80 --update-shallow
82 By default when fetching from a shallow repository, git fetch
83 refuses refs that require updating .git/shallow. This option
84 updates .git/shallow and accept such refs.
85 --negotiation-tip=<commit|glob>
87 By default, Git will report, to the server, commits reachable from
88 all local refs to find common commits in an attempt to reduce the
89 size of the to-be-received packfile. If specified, Git will only
90 report commits reachable from the given tips. This is useful to
91 speed up fetches when the user knows which local ref is likely to
92 have commits in common with the upstream ref being fetched.
93 This option may be specified more than once; if so, Git will report
95 commits reachable from any of the given commits.
96 The argument to this option may be a glob on ref names, a ref, or
98 the (possibly abbreviated) SHA-1 of a commit. Specifying a glob is
99 equivalent to specifying this option multiple times, one for each
100 matching ref name.
101 See also the fetch.negotiationAlgorithm configuration variable
103 documented in git-config(1).
104 --dry-run
106 Show what would be done, without making any changes.
107 --[no-]write-fetch-head
109 Write the list of remote refs fetched in the FETCH_HEAD file
110 directly under $GIT_DIR. This is the default. Passing
111 --no-write-fetch-head from the command line tells Git not to write
112 the file. Under --dry-run option, the file is never written.
113 -f, --force
115 When git fetch is used with <src>:<dst> refspec it may refuse to
116 update the local branch as discussed in the <refspec> part below.
117 This option overrides that check.
118 -k, --keep
120 Keep downloaded pack.
121 --multiple
123 Allow several <repository> and <group> arguments to be specified.
124 No <refspec>s may be specified.
125 --[no-]auto-maintenance, --[no-]auto-gc
127 Run git maintenance run --auto at the end to perform automatic
128 repository maintenance if needed. (--[no-]auto-gc is a synonym.)
129 This is enabled by default.
130 --[no-]write-commit-graph
132 Write a commit-graph after fetching. This overrides the config
133 setting fetch.writeCommitGraph.
134 -p, --prune
136 Before fetching, remove any remote-tracking references that no
137 longer exist on the remote. Tags are not subject to pruning if they
138 are fetched only because of the default tag auto-following or due
139 to a --tags option. However, if tags are fetched due to an explicit
140 refspec (either on the command line or in the remote configuration,
141 for example if the remote was cloned with the --mirror option),
142 then they are also subject to pruning. Supplying --prune-tags is a
143 shorthand for providing the tag refspec.
144 See the PRUNING section below for more details.
146 -P, --prune-tags
148 Before fetching, remove any local tags that no longer exist on the
149 remote if --prune is enabled. This option should be used more
150 carefully, unlike --prune it will remove any local references
151 (local tags) that have been created. This option is a shorthand for
152 providing the explicit tag refspec along with --prune, see the
153 discussion about that in its documentation.
154 See the PRUNING section below for more details.
156 -n, --no-tags
158 By default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded from the
159 remote repository are fetched and stored locally. This option
160 disables this automatic tag following. The default behavior for a
161 remote may be specified with the remote.<name>.tagOpt setting. See
162 git-config(1).
163 --refmap=<refspec>
165 When fetching refs listed on the command line, use the specified
166 refspec (can be given more than once) to map the refs to
167 remote-tracking branches, instead of the values of remote.*.fetch
168 configuration variables for the remote repository. Providing an
169 empty <refspec> to the --refmap option causes Git to ignore the
170 configured refspecs and rely entirely on the refspecs supplied as
171 command-line arguments. See section on "Configured Remote-tracking
172 Branches" for details.
173 -t, --tags
175 Fetch all tags from the remote (i.e., fetch remote tags refs/tags/*
176 into local tags with the same name), in addition to whatever else
177 would otherwise be fetched. Using this option alone does not
178 subject tags to pruning, even if --prune is used (though tags may
179 be pruned anyway if they are also the destination of an explicit
180 refspec; see --prune).
181 --recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]
183 This option controls if and under what conditions new commits of
184 populated submodules should be fetched too. It can be used as a
185 boolean option to completely disable recursion when set to no or to
186 unconditionally recurse into all populated submodules when set to
187 yes, which is the default when this option is used without any
188 value. Use on-demand to only recurse into a populated submodule
189 when the superproject retrieves a commit that updates the
190 submodule’s reference to a commit that isn’t already in the local
191 submodule clone. By default, on-demand is used, unless
192 fetch.recurseSubmodules is set (see git-config(1)).
193 -j, --jobs=<n>
195 Number of parallel children to be used for all forms of fetching.
196 If the --multiple option was specified, the different remotes will
198 be fetched in parallel. If multiple submodules are fetched, they
199 will be fetched in parallel. To control them independently, use the
200 config settings fetch.parallel and submodule.fetchJobs (see git-
201 config(1)).
202 Typically, parallel recursive and multi-remote fetches will be
204 faster. By default fetches are performed sequentially, not in
205 parallel.
206 --no-recurse-submodules
208 Disable recursive fetching of submodules (this has the same effect
209 as using the --recurse-submodules=no option).
210 --set-upstream
212 If the remote is fetched successfully, add upstream (tracking)
213 reference, used by argument-less git-pull(1) and other commands.
214 For more information, see branch.<name>.merge and
215 branch.<name>.remote in git-config(1).
216 --submodule-prefix=<path>
218 Prepend <path> to paths printed in informative messages such as
219 "Fetching submodule foo". This option is used internally when
220 recursing over submodules.
221 --recurse-submodules-default=[yes|on-demand]
223 This option is used internally to temporarily provide a
224 non-negative default value for the --recurse-submodules option. All
225 other methods of configuring fetch’s submodule recursion (such as
226 settings in gitmodules(5) and git-config(1)) override this option,
227 as does specifying --[no-]recurse-submodules directly.
228 -u, --update-head-ok
230 By default git fetch refuses to update the head which corresponds
231 to the current branch. This flag disables the check. This is purely
232 for the internal use for git pull to communicate with git fetch,
233 and unless you are implementing your own Porcelain you are not
234 supposed to use it.
235 --upload-pack <upload-pack>
237 When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by git
238 fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the command to
239 specify non-default path for the command run on the other end.
240 -q, --quiet
242 Pass --quiet to git-fetch-pack and silence any other internally
243 used git commands. Progress is not reported to the standard error
244 stream.
245 -v, --verbose
247 Be verbose.
248 --progress
250 Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
251 when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This
252 flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is
253 not directed to a terminal.
254 -o <option>, --server-option=<option>
256 Transmit the given string to the server when communicating using
257 protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a NUL or LF
258 character. The server’s handling of server options, including
259 unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple
260 --server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the other
261 side in the order listed on the command line.
262 --show-forced-updates
264 By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch.
265 This can be disabled through fetch.showForcedUpdates, but the
266 --show-forced-updates option guarantees this check occurs. See git-
267 config(1).
268 --no-show-forced-updates
270 By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch.
271 Pass --no-show-forced-updates or set fetch.showForcedUpdates to
272 false to skip this check for performance reasons. If used during
273 git-pull the --ff-only option will still check for forced updates
274 before attempting a fast-forward update. See git-config(1).
275 -4, --ipv4
277 Use IPv4 addresses only, ignoring IPv6 addresses.
278 -6, --ipv6
280 Use IPv6 addresses only, ignoring IPv4 addresses.
281 <repository>
283 The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch or pull
284 operation. This parameter can be either a URL (see the section GIT
285 URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES
286 below).
287 <group>
289 A name referring to a list of repositories as the value of
290 remotes.<group> in the configuration file. (See git-config(1)).
291 <refspec>
293 Specifies which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. When
294 no <refspec>s appear on the command line, the refs to fetch are
295 read from remote.<repository>.fetch variables instead (see
296 CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES below).
297 The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +, followed
299 by the source <src>, followed by a colon :, followed by the
300 destination ref <dst>. The colon can be omitted when <dst> is
301 empty. <src> is typically a ref, but it can also be a fully spelled
302 hex object name.
303 A <refspec> may contain a * in its <src> to indicate a simple
305 pattern match. Such a refspec functions like a glob that matches
306 any ref with the same prefix. A pattern <refspec> must have a * in
307 both the <src> and <dst>. It will map refs to the destination by
308 replacing the * with the contents matched from the source.
309 If a refspec is prefixed by ^, it will be interpreted as a negative
311 refspec. Rather than specifying which refs to fetch or which local
312 refs to update, such a refspec will instead specify refs to
313 exclude. A ref will be considered to match if it matches at least
314 one positive refspec, and does not match any negative refspec.
315 Negative refspecs can be useful to restrict the scope of a pattern
316 refspec so that it will not include specific refs. Negative
317 refspecs can themselves be pattern refspecs. However, they may only
318 contain a <src> and do not specify a <dst>. Fully spelled out hex
319 object names are also not supported.
320 tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>; it
322 requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
323 The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is not
325 an empty string, an attempt is made to update the local ref that
326 matches it.
327 Whether that update is allowed without --force depends on the ref
329 namespace it’s being fetched to, the type of object being fetched,
330 and whether the update is considered to be a fast-forward.
331 Generally, the same rules apply for fetching as when pushing, see
332 the <refspec>... section of git-push(1) for what those are.
333 Exceptions to those rules particular to git fetch are noted below.
334 Until Git version 2.20, and unlike when pushing with git-push(1),
336 any updates to refs/tags/* would be accepted without + in the
337 refspec (or --force). When fetching, we promiscuously considered
338 all tag updates from a remote to be forced fetches. Since Git
339 version 2.20, fetching to update refs/tags/* works the same way as
340 when pushing. I.e. any updates will be rejected without + in the
341 refspec (or --force).
342 Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), any updates outside of
344 refs/{tags,heads}/* will be accepted without + in the refspec (or
345 --force), whether that’s swapping e.g. a tree object for a blob, or
346 a commit for another commit that’s doesn’t have the previous commit
347 as an ancestor etc.
348 Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), there is no configuration
350 which’ll amend these rules, and nothing like a pre-fetch hook
351 analogous to the pre-receive hook.
352 As with pushing with git-push(1), all of the rules described above
354 about what’s not allowed as an update can be overridden by adding
355 an the optional leading + to a refspec (or using --force command
356 line option). The only exception to this is that no amount of
357 forcing will make the refs/heads/* namespace accept a non-commit
358 object.
359 Note
361 When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be rewound
362 and rebased regularly, it is expected that its new tip will not
363 be descendant of its previous tip (as stored in your
364 remote-tracking branch the last time you fetched). You would
365 want to use the + sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates
366 will be needed for such branches. There is no way to determine
367 or declare that a branch will be made available in a repository
368 with this behavior; the pulling user simply must know this is
369 the expected usage pattern for a branch.
370 --stdin
372 Read refspecs, one per line, from stdin in addition to those
373 provided as arguments. The "tag <name>" format is not supported.
374
376 In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
377 address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
378 on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.
379 Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and
381 ftps can be used for fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated;
382 do not use it).
383 The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and
385 should be used with caution on unsecured networks.
386 The following syntaxes may be used with them:
388 • ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
390 • git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
392 • http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
394 • ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
396 An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
398 • [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
400 This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first
402 colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For
403 example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path
404 or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.
405 The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
407 • ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
409 • git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
411 • [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
413 For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following
415 syntaxes may be used:
416 • /path/to/repo.git/
418 • file:///path/to/repo.git/
420 These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the
422 former implies --local option. See git-clone(1) for details.
423 git clone, git fetch and git pull, but not git push, will also accept a
425 suitable bundle file. See git-bundle(1).
426 When Git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
428 attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To
429 explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:
430 • <transport>::<address>
432 where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
434 URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
435 See gitremote-helpers(7) for details.
436 If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
438 you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
439 will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
440 section of the form:
441 [url "<actual url base>"]
443 insteadOf = <other url base>
444 For example, with this:
446 [url "git://git.host.xz/"]
448 insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
449 insteadOf = work:
450 a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
452 rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
453 "git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
454 If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
456 configuration section of the form:
457 [url "<actual url base>"]
459 pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
460 For example, with this:
462 [url "ssh://example.org/"]
464 pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
465 a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
467 "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
468 use the original URL.
469
471 The name of one of the following can be used instead of a URL as
472 <repository> argument:
473 • a remote in the Git configuration file: $GIT_DIR/config,
475 • a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory, or
477 • a file in the $GIT_DIR/branches directory.
479 All of these also allow you to omit the refspec from the command line
481 because they each contain a refspec which git will use by default.
482 Named remote in configuration file
484 You can choose to provide the name of a remote which you had previously
485 configured using git-remote(1), git-config(1) or even by a manual edit
486 to the $GIT_DIR/config file. The URL of this remote will be used to
487 access the repository. The refspec of this remote will be used by
488 default when you do not provide a refspec on the command line. The
489 entry in the config file would appear like this:
490 [remote "<name>"]
492 url = <url>
493 pushurl = <pushurl>
494 push = <refspec>
495 fetch = <refspec>
496 The <pushurl> is used for pushes only. It is optional and defaults to
498 <url>.
499 Named file in $GIT_DIR/remotes
501 You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes. The
502 URL in this file will be used to access the repository. The refspec in
503 this file will be used as default when you do not provide a refspec on
504 the command line. This file should have the following format:
505 URL: one of the above URL format
507 Push: <refspec>
508 Pull: <refspec>
509 Push: lines are used by git push and Pull: lines are used by git pull
511 and git fetch. Multiple Push: and Pull: lines may be specified for
512 additional branch mappings.
513 Named file in $GIT_DIR/branches
515 You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches. The
516 URL in this file will be used to access the repository. This file
517 should have the following format:
518 <url>#<head>
520 <url> is required; #<head> is optional.
522 Depending on the operation, git will use one of the following refspecs,
524 if you don’t provide one on the command line. <branch> is the name of
525 this file in $GIT_DIR/branches and <head> defaults to master.
526 git fetch uses:
528 refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>
530 git push uses:
532 HEAD:refs/heads/<head>
534
536 You often interact with the same remote repository by regularly and
537 repeatedly fetching from it. In order to keep track of the progress of
538 such a remote repository, git fetch allows you to configure
539 remote.<repository>.fetch configuration variables.
540 Typically such a variable may look like this:
542 [remote "origin"]
544 fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
545 This configuration is used in two ways:
547 • When git fetch is run without specifying what branches and/or tags
549 to fetch on the command line, e.g. git fetch origin or git fetch,
550 remote.<repository>.fetch values are used as the refspecs—they
551 specify which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. The
552 example above will fetch all branches that exist in the origin
553 (i.e. any ref that matches the left-hand side of the value,
554 refs/heads/*) and update the corresponding remote-tracking branches
555 in the refs/remotes/origin/* hierarchy.
556 • When git fetch is run with explicit branches and/or tags to fetch
558 on the command line, e.g. git fetch origin master, the <refspec>s
559 given on the command line determine what are to be fetched (e.g.
560 master in the example, which is a short-hand for master:, which in
561 turn means "fetch the master branch but I do not explicitly say
562 what remote-tracking branch to update with it from the command
563 line"), and the example command will fetch only the master branch.
564 The remote.<repository>.fetch values determine which
565 remote-tracking branch, if any, is updated. When used in this way,
566 the remote.<repository>.fetch values do not have any effect in
567 deciding what gets fetched (i.e. the values are not used as
568 refspecs when the command-line lists refspecs); they are only used
569 to decide where the refs that are fetched are stored by acting as a
570 mapping.
571 The latter use of the remote.<repository>.fetch values can be
573 overridden by giving the --refmap=<refspec> parameter(s) on the command
574 line.
575
577 Git has a default disposition of keeping data unless it’s explicitly
578 thrown away; this extends to holding onto local references to branches
579 on remotes that have themselves deleted those branches.
580 If left to accumulate, these stale references might make performance
582 worse on big and busy repos that have a lot of branch churn, and e.g.
583 make the output of commands like git branch -a --contains <commit>
584 needlessly verbose, as well as impacting anything else that’ll work
585 with the complete set of known references.
586 These remote-tracking references can be deleted as a one-off with
588 either of:
589 # While fetching
591 $ git fetch --prune <name>
592 # Only prune, don't fetch
594 $ git remote prune <name>
595 To prune references as part of your normal workflow without needing to
597 remember to run that, set fetch.prune globally, or remote.<name>.prune
598 per-remote in the config. See git-config(1).
599 Here’s where things get tricky and more specific. The pruning feature
601 doesn’t actually care about branches, instead it’ll prune local <→
602 remote-references as a function of the refspec of the remote (see
603 <refspec> and CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES above).
604 Therefore if the refspec for the remote includes e.g.
606 refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*, or you manually run e.g. git fetch --prune
607 <name> "refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*" it won’t be stale remote tracking
608 branches that are deleted, but any local tag that doesn’t exist on the
609 remote.
610 This might not be what you expect, i.e. you want to prune remote
612 <name>, but also explicitly fetch tags from it, so when you fetch from
613 it you delete all your local tags, most of which may not have come from
614 the <name> remote in the first place.
615 So be careful when using this with a refspec like
617 refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*, or any other refspec which might map
618 references from multiple remotes to the same local namespace.
619 Since keeping up-to-date with both branches and tags on the remote is a
621 common use-case the --prune-tags option can be supplied along with
622 --prune to prune local tags that don’t exist on the remote, and
623 force-update those tags that differ. Tag pruning can also be enabled
624 with fetch.pruneTags or remote.<name>.pruneTags in the config. See git-
625 config(1).
626 The --prune-tags option is equivalent to having refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*
628 declared in the refspecs of the remote. This can lead to some seemingly
629 strange interactions:
630 # These both fetch tags
632 $ git fetch --no-tags origin 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
633 $ git fetch --no-tags --prune-tags origin
634 The reason it doesn’t error out when provided without --prune or its
636 config versions is for flexibility of the configured versions, and to
637 maintain a 1=1 mapping between what the command line flags do, and what
638 the configuration versions do.
639 It’s reasonable to e.g. configure fetch.pruneTags=true in ~/.gitconfig
641 to have tags pruned whenever git fetch --prune is run, without making
642 every invocation of git fetch without --prune an error.
643 Pruning tags with --prune-tags also works when fetching a URL instead
645 of a named remote. These will all prune tags not found on origin:
646 $ git fetch origin --prune --prune-tags
648 $ git fetch origin --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
649 $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune --prune-tags
650 $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
651
653 The output of "git fetch" depends on the transport method used; this
654 section describes the output when fetching over the Git protocol
655 (either locally or via ssh) and Smart HTTP protocol.
656 The status of the fetch is output in tabular form, with each line
658 representing the status of a single ref. Each line is of the form:
659 <flag> <summary> <from> -> <to> [<reason>]
661 The status of up-to-date refs is shown only if the --verbose option is
663 used.
664 In compact output mode, specified with configuration variable
666 fetch.output, if either entire <from> or <to> is found in the other
667 string, it will be substituted with * in the other string. For example,
668 master -> origin/master becomes master -> origin/*.
669 flag
671 A single character indicating the status of the ref:
672 (space)
674 for a successfully fetched fast-forward;
675 +
677 for a successful forced update;
678 -
680 for a successfully pruned ref;
681 t
683 for a successful tag update;
684 *
686 for a successfully fetched new ref;
687 !
689 for a ref that was rejected or failed to update; and
690 =
692 for a ref that was up to date and did not need fetching.
693 summary
695 For a successfully fetched ref, the summary shows the old and new
696 values of the ref in a form suitable for using as an argument to
697 git log (this is <old>..<new> in most cases, and <old>...<new> for
698 forced non-fast-forward updates).
699 from
701 The name of the remote ref being fetched from, minus its
702 refs/<type>/ prefix. In the case of deletion, the name of the
703 remote ref is "(none)".
704 to
706 The name of the local ref being updated, minus its refs/<type>/
707 prefix.
708 reason
710 A human-readable explanation. In the case of successfully fetched
711 refs, no explanation is needed. For a failed ref, the reason for
712 failure is described.
713
715 • Update the remote-tracking branches:
716 $ git fetch origin
718 The above command copies all branches from the remote refs/heads/
720 namespace and stores them to the local refs/remotes/origin/
721 namespace, unless the branch.<name>.fetch option is used to specify
722 a non-default refspec.
723 • Using refspecs explicitly:
725 $ git fetch origin +seen:seen maint:tmp
727 This updates (or creates, as necessary) branches seen and tmp in
729 the local repository by fetching from the branches (respectively)
730 seen and maint from the remote repository.
731 The seen branch will be updated even if it does not fast-forward,
733 because it is prefixed with a plus sign; tmp will not be.
734 • Peek at a remote’s branch, without configuring the remote in your
736 local repository:
737 $ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git maint
739 $ git log FETCH_HEAD
740 The first command fetches the maint branch from the repository at
742 git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git and the second command
743 uses FETCH_HEAD to examine the branch with git-log(1). The fetched
744 objects will eventually be removed by git’s built-in housekeeping
745 (see git-gc(1)).
746
748 The fetch and push protocols are not designed to prevent one side from
749 stealing data from the other repository that was not intended to be
750 shared. If you have private data that you need to protect from a
751 malicious peer, your best option is to store it in another repository.
752 This applies to both clients and servers. In particular, namespaces on
753 a server are not effective for read access control; you should only
754 grant read access to a namespace to clients that you would trust with
755 read access to the entire repository.
756 The known attack vectors are as follows:
758 1. The victim sends "have" lines advertising the IDs of objects it has
760 that are not explicitly intended to be shared but can be used to
761 optimize the transfer if the peer also has them. The attacker
762 chooses an object ID X to steal and sends a ref to X, but isn’t
763 required to send the content of X because the victim already has
764 it. Now the victim believes that the attacker has X, and it sends
765 the content of X back to the attacker later. (This attack is most
766 straightforward for a client to perform on a server, by creating a
767 ref to X in the namespace the client has access to and then
768 fetching it. The most likely way for a server to perform it on a
769 client is to "merge" X into a public branch and hope that the user
770 does additional work on this branch and pushes it back to the
771 server without noticing the merge.)
772 2. As in #1, the attacker chooses an object ID X to steal. The victim
774 sends an object Y that the attacker already has, and the attacker
775 falsely claims to have X and not Y, so the victim sends Y as a
776 delta against X. The delta reveals regions of X that are similar to
777 Y to the attacker.
778
780 Using --recurse-submodules can only fetch new commits in already
781 checked out submodules right now. When e.g. upstream added a new
782 submodule in the just fetched commits of the superproject the submodule
783 itself cannot be fetched, making it impossible to check out that
784 submodule later without having to do a fetch again. This is expected to
785 be fixed in a future Git version.
786
788 git-pull(1)
789
791 Part of the git(1) suite
792Git 2.31.1 2021-03-26 GIT-FETCH(1)