1GIT-FETCH(1)                      Git Manual                      GIT-FETCH(1)
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NAME

6       git-fetch - Download objects and refs from another repository
7

SYNOPSIS

9       git fetch [<options>] [<repository> [<refspec>...]]
10       git fetch [<options>] <group>
11       git fetch --multiple [<options>] [(<repository> | <group>)...]
12       git fetch --all [<options>]
13

DESCRIPTION

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

OPTIONS

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       --atomic
48           Use an atomic transaction to update local refs. Either all refs are
49           updated, or on error, no refs are updated.
50
51       --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
58       --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
63       --shallow-since=<date>
64           Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to include
65           all reachable commits after <date>.
66
67       --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
72       --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
77           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
81       --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
86       --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
94           This option may be specified more than once; if so, Git will report
95           commits reachable from any of the given commits.
96
97           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
102           See also the fetch.negotiationAlgorithm and push.negotiate
103           configuration variables documented in git-config(1), and the
104           --negotiate-only option below.
105
106       --negotiate-only
107           Do not fetch anything from the server, and instead print the
108           ancestors of the provided --negotiation-tip=* arguments, which we
109           have in common with the server.
110
111           This is incompatible with --recurse-submodules=[yes|on-demand].
112           Internally this is used to implement the push.negotiate option, see
113           git-config(1).
114
115       --dry-run
116           Show what would be done, without making any changes.
117
118       --[no-]write-fetch-head
119           Write the list of remote refs fetched in the FETCH_HEAD file
120           directly under $GIT_DIR. This is the default. Passing
121           --no-write-fetch-head from the command line tells Git not to write
122           the file. Under --dry-run option, the file is never written.
123
124       -f, --force
125           When git fetch is used with <src>:<dst> refspec it may refuse to
126           update the local branch as discussed in the <refspec> part below.
127           This option overrides that check.
128
129       -k, --keep
130           Keep downloaded pack.
131
132       --multiple
133           Allow several <repository> and <group> arguments to be specified.
134           No <refspec>s may be specified.
135
136       --[no-]auto-maintenance, --[no-]auto-gc
137           Run git maintenance run --auto at the end to perform automatic
138           repository maintenance if needed. (--[no-]auto-gc is a synonym.)
139           This is enabled by default.
140
141       --[no-]write-commit-graph
142           Write a commit-graph after fetching. This overrides the config
143           setting fetch.writeCommitGraph.
144
145       --prefetch
146           Modify the configured refspec to place all refs into the
147           refs/prefetch/ namespace. See the prefetch task in git-
148           maintenance(1).
149
150       -p, --prune
151           Before fetching, remove any remote-tracking references that no
152           longer exist on the remote. Tags are not subject to pruning if they
153           are fetched only because of the default tag auto-following or due
154           to a --tags option. However, if tags are fetched due to an explicit
155           refspec (either on the command line or in the remote configuration,
156           for example if the remote was cloned with the --mirror option),
157           then they are also subject to pruning. Supplying --prune-tags is a
158           shorthand for providing the tag refspec.
159
160           See the PRUNING section below for more details.
161
162       -P, --prune-tags
163           Before fetching, remove any local tags that no longer exist on the
164           remote if --prune is enabled. This option should be used more
165           carefully, unlike --prune it will remove any local references
166           (local tags) that have been created. This option is a shorthand for
167           providing the explicit tag refspec along with --prune, see the
168           discussion about that in its documentation.
169
170           See the PRUNING section below for more details.
171
172       -n, --no-tags
173           By default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded from the
174           remote repository are fetched and stored locally. This option
175           disables this automatic tag following. The default behavior for a
176           remote may be specified with the remote.<name>.tagOpt setting. See
177           git-config(1).
178
179       --refetch
180           Instead of negotiating with the server to avoid transferring
181           commits and associated objects that are already present locally,
182           this option fetches all objects as a fresh clone would. Use this to
183           reapply a partial clone filter from configuration or using
184           --filter= when the filter definition has changed. Automatic
185           post-fetch maintenance will perform object database pack
186           consolidation to remove any duplicate objects.
187
188       --refmap=<refspec>
189           When fetching refs listed on the command line, use the specified
190           refspec (can be given more than once) to map the refs to
191           remote-tracking branches, instead of the values of remote.*.fetch
192           configuration variables for the remote repository. Providing an
193           empty <refspec> to the --refmap option causes Git to ignore the
194           configured refspecs and rely entirely on the refspecs supplied as
195           command-line arguments. See section on "Configured Remote-tracking
196           Branches" for details.
197
198       -t, --tags
199           Fetch all tags from the remote (i.e., fetch remote tags refs/tags/*
200           into local tags with the same name), in addition to whatever else
201           would otherwise be fetched. Using this option alone does not
202           subject tags to pruning, even if --prune is used (though tags may
203           be pruned anyway if they are also the destination of an explicit
204           refspec; see --prune).
205
206       --recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]
207           This option controls if and under what conditions new commits of
208           submodules should be fetched too. When recursing through
209           submodules, git fetch always attempts to fetch "changed"
210           submodules, that is, a submodule that has commits that are
211           referenced by a newly fetched superproject commit but are missing
212           in the local submodule clone. A changed submodule can be fetched as
213           long as it is present locally e.g. in $GIT_DIR/modules/ (see
214           gitsubmodules(7)); if the upstream adds a new submodule, that
215           submodule cannot be fetched until it is cloned e.g. by git
216           submodule update.
217
218           When set to on-demand, only changed submodules are fetched. When
219           set to yes, all populated submodules are fetched and submodules
220           that are both unpopulated and changed are fetched. When set to no,
221           submodules are never fetched.
222
223           When unspecified, this uses the value of fetch.recurseSubmodules if
224           it is set (see git-config(1)), defaulting to on-demand if unset.
225           When this option is used without any value, it defaults to yes.
226
227       -j, --jobs=<n>
228           Number of parallel children to be used for all forms of fetching.
229
230           If the --multiple option was specified, the different remotes will
231           be fetched in parallel. If multiple submodules are fetched, they
232           will be fetched in parallel. To control them independently, use the
233           config settings fetch.parallel and submodule.fetchJobs (see git-
234           config(1)).
235
236           Typically, parallel recursive and multi-remote fetches will be
237           faster. By default fetches are performed sequentially, not in
238           parallel.
239
240       --no-recurse-submodules
241           Disable recursive fetching of submodules (this has the same effect
242           as using the --recurse-submodules=no option).
243
244       --set-upstream
245           If the remote is fetched successfully, add upstream (tracking)
246           reference, used by argument-less git-pull(1) and other commands.
247           For more information, see branch.<name>.merge and
248           branch.<name>.remote in git-config(1).
249
250       --submodule-prefix=<path>
251           Prepend <path> to paths printed in informative messages such as
252           "Fetching submodule foo". This option is used internally when
253           recursing over submodules.
254
255       --recurse-submodules-default=[yes|on-demand]
256           This option is used internally to temporarily provide a
257           non-negative default value for the --recurse-submodules option. All
258           other methods of configuring fetch’s submodule recursion (such as
259           settings in gitmodules(5) and git-config(1)) override this option,
260           as does specifying --[no-]recurse-submodules directly.
261
262       -u, --update-head-ok
263           By default git fetch refuses to update the head which corresponds
264           to the current branch. This flag disables the check. This is purely
265           for the internal use for git pull to communicate with git fetch,
266           and unless you are implementing your own Porcelain you are not
267           supposed to use it.
268
269       --upload-pack <upload-pack>
270           When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by git
271           fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the command to
272           specify non-default path for the command run on the other end.
273
274       -q, --quiet
275           Pass --quiet to git-fetch-pack and silence any other internally
276           used git commands. Progress is not reported to the standard error
277           stream.
278
279       -v, --verbose
280           Be verbose.
281
282       --progress
283           Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
284           when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This
285           flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is
286           not directed to a terminal.
287
288       -o <option>, --server-option=<option>
289           Transmit the given string to the server when communicating using
290           protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a NUL or LF
291           character. The server’s handling of server options, including
292           unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple
293           --server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the other
294           side in the order listed on the command line.
295
296       --show-forced-updates
297           By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch.
298           This can be disabled through fetch.showForcedUpdates, but the
299           --show-forced-updates option guarantees this check occurs. See git-
300           config(1).
301
302       --no-show-forced-updates
303           By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch.
304           Pass --no-show-forced-updates or set fetch.showForcedUpdates to
305           false to skip this check for performance reasons. If used during
306           git-pull the --ff-only option will still check for forced updates
307           before attempting a fast-forward update. See git-config(1).
308
309       -4, --ipv4
310           Use IPv4 addresses only, ignoring IPv6 addresses.
311
312       -6, --ipv6
313           Use IPv6 addresses only, ignoring IPv4 addresses.
314
315       <repository>
316           The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch or pull
317           operation. This parameter can be either a URL (see the section GIT
318           URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES
319           below).
320
321       <group>
322           A name referring to a list of repositories as the value of
323           remotes.<group> in the configuration file. (See git-config(1)).
324
325       <refspec>
326           Specifies which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. When
327           no <refspec>s appear on the command line, the refs to fetch are
328           read from remote.<repository>.fetch variables instead (see
329           CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES below).
330
331           The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +, followed
332           by the source <src>, followed by a colon :, followed by the
333           destination ref <dst>. The colon can be omitted when <dst> is
334           empty. <src> is typically a ref, but it can also be a fully spelled
335           hex object name.
336
337           A <refspec> may contain a * in its <src> to indicate a simple
338           pattern match. Such a refspec functions like a glob that matches
339           any ref with the same prefix. A pattern <refspec> must have a * in
340           both the <src> and <dst>. It will map refs to the destination by
341           replacing the * with the contents matched from the source.
342
343           If a refspec is prefixed by ^, it will be interpreted as a negative
344           refspec. Rather than specifying which refs to fetch or which local
345           refs to update, such a refspec will instead specify refs to
346           exclude. A ref will be considered to match if it matches at least
347           one positive refspec, and does not match any negative refspec.
348           Negative refspecs can be useful to restrict the scope of a pattern
349           refspec so that it will not include specific refs. Negative
350           refspecs can themselves be pattern refspecs. However, they may only
351           contain a <src> and do not specify a <dst>. Fully spelled out hex
352           object names are also not supported.
353
354           tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>; it
355           requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
356
357           The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is not
358           an empty string, an attempt is made to update the local ref that
359           matches it.
360
361           Whether that update is allowed without --force depends on the ref
362           namespace it’s being fetched to, the type of object being fetched,
363           and whether the update is considered to be a fast-forward.
364           Generally, the same rules apply for fetching as when pushing, see
365           the <refspec>...  section of git-push(1) for what those are.
366           Exceptions to those rules particular to git fetch are noted below.
367
368           Until Git version 2.20, and unlike when pushing with git-push(1),
369           any updates to refs/tags/* would be accepted without + in the
370           refspec (or --force). When fetching, we promiscuously considered
371           all tag updates from a remote to be forced fetches. Since Git
372           version 2.20, fetching to update refs/tags/* works the same way as
373           when pushing. I.e. any updates will be rejected without + in the
374           refspec (or --force).
375
376           Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), any updates outside of
377           refs/{tags,heads}/* will be accepted without + in the refspec (or
378           --force), whether that’s swapping e.g. a tree object for a blob, or
379           a commit for another commit that’s doesn’t have the previous commit
380           as an ancestor etc.
381
382           Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), there is no configuration
383           which’ll amend these rules, and nothing like a pre-fetch hook
384           analogous to the pre-receive hook.
385
386           As with pushing with git-push(1), all of the rules described above
387           about what’s not allowed as an update can be overridden by adding
388           an the optional leading + to a refspec (or using --force command
389           line option). The only exception to this is that no amount of
390           forcing will make the refs/heads/* namespace accept a non-commit
391           object.
392
393               Note
394               When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be rewound
395               and rebased regularly, it is expected that its new tip will not
396               be descendant of its previous tip (as stored in your
397               remote-tracking branch the last time you fetched). You would
398               want to use the + sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates
399               will be needed for such branches. There is no way to determine
400               or declare that a branch will be made available in a repository
401               with this behavior; the pulling user simply must know this is
402               the expected usage pattern for a branch.
403
404       --stdin
405           Read refspecs, one per line, from stdin in addition to those
406           provided as arguments. The "tag <name>" format is not supported.
407

GIT URLS

409       In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
410       address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
411       on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.
412
413       Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and
414       ftps can be used for fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated;
415       do not use it).
416
417       The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and
418       should be used with caution on unsecured networks.
419
420       The following syntaxes may be used with them:
421
422       •   ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
423
424       •   git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
425
426       •   http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
427
428       •   ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
429
430       An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
431
432       •   [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
433
434       This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first
435       colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For
436       example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path
437       or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.
438
439       The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
440
441       •   ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
442
443       •   git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
444
445       •   [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
446
447       For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following
448       syntaxes may be used:
449
450       •   /path/to/repo.git/
451
452       •   file:///path/to/repo.git/
453
454       These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the
455       former implies --local option. See git-clone(1) for details.
456
457       git clone, git fetch and git pull, but not git push, will also accept a
458       suitable bundle file. See git-bundle(1).
459
460       When Git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
461       attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To
462       explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:
463
464       •   <transport>::<address>
465
466       where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
467       URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
468       See gitremote-helpers(7) for details.
469
470       If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
471       you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
472       will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
473       section of the form:
474
475                   [url "<actual url base>"]
476                           insteadOf = <other url base>
477
478       For example, with this:
479
480                   [url "git://git.host.xz/"]
481                           insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
482                           insteadOf = work:
483
484       a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
485       rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
486       "git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
487
488       If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
489       configuration section of the form:
490
491                   [url "<actual url base>"]
492                           pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
493
494       For example, with this:
495
496                   [url "ssh://example.org/"]
497                           pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
498
499       a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
500       "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
501       use the original URL.
502

REMOTES

504       The name of one of the following can be used instead of a URL as
505       <repository> argument:
506
507       •   a remote in the Git configuration file: $GIT_DIR/config,
508
509       •   a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory, or
510
511       •   a file in the $GIT_DIR/branches directory.
512
513       All of these also allow you to omit the refspec from the command line
514       because they each contain a refspec which git will use by default.
515
516   Named remote in configuration file
517       You can choose to provide the name of a remote which you had previously
518       configured using git-remote(1), git-config(1) or even by a manual edit
519       to the $GIT_DIR/config file. The URL of this remote will be used to
520       access the repository. The refspec of this remote will be used by
521       default when you do not provide a refspec on the command line. The
522       entry in the config file would appear like this:
523
524                   [remote "<name>"]
525                           url = <URL>
526                           pushurl = <pushurl>
527                           push = <refspec>
528                           fetch = <refspec>
529
530       The <pushurl> is used for pushes only. It is optional and defaults to
531       <URL>.
532
533   Named file in $GIT_DIR/remotes
534       You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes. The
535       URL in this file will be used to access the repository. The refspec in
536       this file will be used as default when you do not provide a refspec on
537       the command line. This file should have the following format:
538
539                   URL: one of the above URL format
540                   Push: <refspec>
541                   Pull: <refspec>
542
543       Push: lines are used by git push and Pull: lines are used by git pull
544       and git fetch. Multiple Push: and Pull: lines may be specified for
545       additional branch mappings.
546
547   Named file in $GIT_DIR/branches
548       You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches. The
549       URL in this file will be used to access the repository. This file
550       should have the following format:
551
552                   <URL>#<head>
553
554       <URL> is required; #<head> is optional.
555
556       Depending on the operation, git will use one of the following refspecs,
557       if you don’t provide one on the command line. <branch> is the name of
558       this file in $GIT_DIR/branches and <head> defaults to master.
559
560       git fetch uses:
561
562                   refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>
563
564       git push uses:
565
566                   HEAD:refs/heads/<head>
567

CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES

569       You often interact with the same remote repository by regularly and
570       repeatedly fetching from it. In order to keep track of the progress of
571       such a remote repository, git fetch allows you to configure
572       remote.<repository>.fetch configuration variables.
573
574       Typically such a variable may look like this:
575
576           [remote "origin"]
577                   fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
578
579       This configuration is used in two ways:
580
581       •   When git fetch is run without specifying what branches and/or tags
582           to fetch on the command line, e.g.  git fetch origin or git fetch,
583           remote.<repository>.fetch values are used as the refspecs—they
584           specify which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. The
585           example above will fetch all branches that exist in the origin
586           (i.e. any ref that matches the left-hand side of the value,
587           refs/heads/*) and update the corresponding remote-tracking branches
588           in the refs/remotes/origin/* hierarchy.
589
590       •   When git fetch is run with explicit branches and/or tags to fetch
591           on the command line, e.g.  git fetch origin master, the <refspec>s
592           given on the command line determine what are to be fetched (e.g.
593           master in the example, which is a short-hand for master:, which in
594           turn means "fetch the master branch but I do not explicitly say
595           what remote-tracking branch to update with it from the command
596           line"), and the example command will fetch only the master branch.
597           The remote.<repository>.fetch values determine which
598           remote-tracking branch, if any, is updated. When used in this way,
599           the remote.<repository>.fetch values do not have any effect in
600           deciding what gets fetched (i.e. the values are not used as
601           refspecs when the command-line lists refspecs); they are only used
602           to decide where the refs that are fetched are stored by acting as a
603           mapping.
604
605       The latter use of the remote.<repository>.fetch values can be
606       overridden by giving the --refmap=<refspec> parameter(s) on the command
607       line.
608

PRUNING

610       Git has a default disposition of keeping data unless it’s explicitly
611       thrown away; this extends to holding onto local references to branches
612       on remotes that have themselves deleted those branches.
613
614       If left to accumulate, these stale references might make performance
615       worse on big and busy repos that have a lot of branch churn, and e.g.
616       make the output of commands like git branch -a --contains <commit>
617       needlessly verbose, as well as impacting anything else that’ll work
618       with the complete set of known references.
619
620       These remote-tracking references can be deleted as a one-off with
621       either of:
622
623           # While fetching
624           $ git fetch --prune <name>
625
626           # Only prune, don't fetch
627           $ git remote prune <name>
628
629       To prune references as part of your normal workflow without needing to
630       remember to run that, set fetch.prune globally, or remote.<name>.prune
631       per-remote in the config. See git-config(1).
632
633       Here’s where things get tricky and more specific. The pruning feature
634       doesn’t actually care about branches, instead it’ll prune local ←→
635       remote-references as a function of the refspec of the remote (see
636       <refspec> and CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES above).
637
638       Therefore if the refspec for the remote includes e.g.
639       refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*, or you manually run e.g. git fetch --prune
640       <name> "refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*" it won’t be stale remote tracking
641       branches that are deleted, but any local tag that doesn’t exist on the
642       remote.
643
644       This might not be what you expect, i.e. you want to prune remote
645       <name>, but also explicitly fetch tags from it, so when you fetch from
646       it you delete all your local tags, most of which may not have come from
647       the <name> remote in the first place.
648
649       So be careful when using this with a refspec like
650       refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*, or any other refspec which might map
651       references from multiple remotes to the same local namespace.
652
653       Since keeping up-to-date with both branches and tags on the remote is a
654       common use-case the --prune-tags option can be supplied along with
655       --prune to prune local tags that don’t exist on the remote, and
656       force-update those tags that differ. Tag pruning can also be enabled
657       with fetch.pruneTags or remote.<name>.pruneTags in the config. See git-
658       config(1).
659
660       The --prune-tags option is equivalent to having refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*
661       declared in the refspecs of the remote. This can lead to some seemingly
662       strange interactions:
663
664           # These both fetch tags
665           $ git fetch --no-tags origin 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
666           $ git fetch --no-tags --prune-tags origin
667
668       The reason it doesn’t error out when provided without --prune or its
669       config versions is for flexibility of the configured versions, and to
670       maintain a 1=1 mapping between what the command line flags do, and what
671       the configuration versions do.
672
673       It’s reasonable to e.g. configure fetch.pruneTags=true in ~/.gitconfig
674       to have tags pruned whenever git fetch --prune is run, without making
675       every invocation of git fetch without --prune an error.
676
677       Pruning tags with --prune-tags also works when fetching a URL instead
678       of a named remote. These will all prune tags not found on origin:
679
680           $ git fetch origin --prune --prune-tags
681           $ git fetch origin --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
682           $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune --prune-tags
683           $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
684

OUTPUT

686       The output of "git fetch" depends on the transport method used; this
687       section describes the output when fetching over the Git protocol
688       (either locally or via ssh) and Smart HTTP protocol.
689
690       The status of the fetch is output in tabular form, with each line
691       representing the status of a single ref. Each line is of the form:
692
693            <flag> <summary> <from> -> <to> [<reason>]
694
695       The status of up-to-date refs is shown only if the --verbose option is
696       used.
697
698       In compact output mode, specified with configuration variable
699       fetch.output, if either entire <from> or <to> is found in the other
700       string, it will be substituted with * in the other string. For example,
701       master -> origin/master becomes master -> origin/*.
702
703       flag
704           A single character indicating the status of the ref:
705
706           (space)
707               for a successfully fetched fast-forward;
708
709           +
710               for a successful forced update;
711
712           -
713               for a successfully pruned ref;
714
715           t
716               for a successful tag update;
717
718           *
719               for a successfully fetched new ref;
720
721           !
722               for a ref that was rejected or failed to update; and
723
724           =
725               for a ref that was up to date and did not need fetching.
726
727       summary
728           For a successfully fetched ref, the summary shows the old and new
729           values of the ref in a form suitable for using as an argument to
730           git log (this is <old>..<new> in most cases, and <old>...<new> for
731           forced non-fast-forward updates).
732
733       from
734           The name of the remote ref being fetched from, minus its
735           refs/<type>/ prefix. In the case of deletion, the name of the
736           remote ref is "(none)".
737
738       to
739           The name of the local ref being updated, minus its refs/<type>/
740           prefix.
741
742       reason
743           A human-readable explanation. In the case of successfully fetched
744           refs, no explanation is needed. For a failed ref, the reason for
745           failure is described.
746

EXAMPLES

748       •   Update the remote-tracking branches:
749
750               $ git fetch origin
751
752           The above command copies all branches from the remote refs/heads/
753           namespace and stores them to the local refs/remotes/origin/
754           namespace, unless the branch.<name>.fetch option is used to specify
755           a non-default refspec.
756
757       •   Using refspecs explicitly:
758
759               $ git fetch origin +seen:seen maint:tmp
760
761           This updates (or creates, as necessary) branches seen and tmp in
762           the local repository by fetching from the branches (respectively)
763           seen and maint from the remote repository.
764
765           The seen branch will be updated even if it does not fast-forward,
766           because it is prefixed with a plus sign; tmp will not be.
767
768       •   Peek at a remote’s branch, without configuring the remote in your
769           local repository:
770
771               $ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git maint
772               $ git log FETCH_HEAD
773
774           The first command fetches the maint branch from the repository at
775           git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git and the second command
776           uses FETCH_HEAD to examine the branch with git-log(1). The fetched
777           objects will eventually be removed by git’s built-in housekeeping
778           (see git-gc(1)).
779

SECURITY

781       The fetch and push protocols are not designed to prevent one side from
782       stealing data from the other repository that was not intended to be
783       shared. If you have private data that you need to protect from a
784       malicious peer, your best option is to store it in another repository.
785       This applies to both clients and servers. In particular, namespaces on
786       a server are not effective for read access control; you should only
787       grant read access to a namespace to clients that you would trust with
788       read access to the entire repository.
789
790       The known attack vectors are as follows:
791
792        1. The victim sends "have" lines advertising the IDs of objects it has
793           that are not explicitly intended to be shared but can be used to
794           optimize the transfer if the peer also has them. The attacker
795           chooses an object ID X to steal and sends a ref to X, but isn’t
796           required to send the content of X because the victim already has
797           it. Now the victim believes that the attacker has X, and it sends
798           the content of X back to the attacker later. (This attack is most
799           straightforward for a client to perform on a server, by creating a
800           ref to X in the namespace the client has access to and then
801           fetching it. The most likely way for a server to perform it on a
802           client is to "merge" X into a public branch and hope that the user
803           does additional work on this branch and pushes it back to the
804           server without noticing the merge.)
805
806        2. As in #1, the attacker chooses an object ID X to steal. The victim
807           sends an object Y that the attacker already has, and the attacker
808           falsely claims to have X and not Y, so the victim sends Y as a
809           delta against X. The delta reveals regions of X that are similar to
810           Y to the attacker.
811

CONFIGURATION

813       Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from
814       the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what’s
815       found there:
816
817       fetch.recurseSubmodules
818           This option controls whether git fetch (and the underlying fetch in
819           git pull) will recursively fetch into populated submodules. This
820           option can be set either to a boolean value or to on-demand.
821           Setting it to a boolean changes the behavior of fetch and pull to
822           recurse unconditionally into submodules when set to true or to not
823           recurse at all when set to false. When set to on-demand, fetch and
824           pull will only recurse into a populated submodule when its
825           superproject retrieves a commit that updates the submodule’s
826           reference. Defaults to on-demand, or to the value of
827           submodule.recurse if set.
828
829       fetch.fsckObjects
830           If it is set to true, git-fetch-pack will check all fetched
831           objects. See transfer.fsckObjects for what’s checked. Defaults to
832           false. If not set, the value of transfer.fsckObjects is used
833           instead.
834
835       fetch.fsck.<msg-id>
836           Acts like fsck.<msg-id>, but is used by git-fetch-pack(1) instead
837           of git-fsck(1). See the fsck.<msg-id> documentation for details.
838
839       fetch.fsck.skipList
840           Acts like fsck.skipList, but is used by git-fetch-pack(1) instead
841           of git-fsck(1). See the fsck.skipList documentation for details.
842
843       fetch.unpackLimit
844           If the number of objects fetched over the Git native transfer is
845           below this limit, then the objects will be unpacked into loose
846           object files. However if the number of received objects equals or
847           exceeds this limit then the received pack will be stored as a pack,
848           after adding any missing delta bases. Storing the pack from a push
849           can make the push operation complete faster, especially on slow
850           filesystems. If not set, the value of transfer.unpackLimit is used
851           instead.
852
853       fetch.prune
854           If true, fetch will automatically behave as if the --prune option
855           was given on the command line. See also remote.<name>.prune and the
856           PRUNING section of git-fetch(1).
857
858       fetch.pruneTags
859           If true, fetch will automatically behave as if the
860           refs/tags/*:refs/tags/* refspec was provided when pruning, if not
861           set already. This allows for setting both this option and
862           fetch.prune to maintain a 1=1 mapping to upstream refs. See also
863           remote.<name>.pruneTags and the PRUNING section of git-fetch(1).
864
865       fetch.output
866           Control how ref update status is printed. Valid values are full and
867           compact. Default value is full. See section OUTPUT in git-fetch(1)
868           for detail.
869
870       fetch.negotiationAlgorithm
871           Control how information about the commits in the local repository
872           is sent when negotiating the contents of the packfile to be sent by
873           the server. Set to "consecutive" to use an algorithm that walks
874           over consecutive commits checking each one. Set to "skipping" to
875           use an algorithm that skips commits in an effort to converge
876           faster, but may result in a larger-than-necessary packfile; or set
877           to "noop" to not send any information at all, which will almost
878           certainly result in a larger-than-necessary packfile, but will skip
879           the negotiation step. Set to "default" to override settings made
880           previously and use the default behaviour. The default is normally
881           "consecutive", but if feature.experimental is true, then the
882           default is "skipping". Unknown values will cause git fetch to error
883           out.
884
885           See also the --negotiate-only and --negotiation-tip options to git-
886           fetch(1).
887
888       fetch.showForcedUpdates
889           Set to false to enable --no-show-forced-updates in git-fetch(1) and
890           git-pull(1) commands. Defaults to true.
891
892       fetch.parallel
893           Specifies the maximal number of fetch operations to be run in
894           parallel at a time (submodules, or remotes when the --multiple
895           option of git-fetch(1) is in effect).
896
897           A value of 0 will give some reasonable default. If unset, it
898           defaults to 1.
899
900           For submodules, this setting can be overridden using the
901           submodule.fetchJobs config setting.
902
903       fetch.writeCommitGraph
904           Set to true to write a commit-graph after every git fetch command
905           that downloads a pack-file from a remote. Using the --split option,
906           most executions will create a very small commit-graph file on top
907           of the existing commit-graph file(s). Occasionally, these files
908           will merge and the write may take longer. Having an updated
909           commit-graph file helps performance of many Git commands, including
910           git merge-base, git push -f, and git log --graph. Defaults to
911           false.
912

BUGS

914       Using --recurse-submodules can only fetch new commits in submodules
915       that are present locally e.g. in $GIT_DIR/modules/. If the upstream
916       adds a new submodule, that submodule cannot be fetched until it is
917       cloned e.g. by git submodule update. This is expected to be fixed in a
918       future Git version.
919

SEE ALSO

921       git-pull(1)
922

GIT

924       Part of the git(1) suite
925
926
927
928Git 2.39.1                        2023-01-13                      GIT-FETCH(1)
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