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 accepts 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 and push.negotiate
103 configuration variables documented in git-config(1), and the
104 --negotiate-only option below.
105 --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 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 --dry-run
116 Show what would be done, without making any changes.
117 --porcelain
119 Print the output to standard output in an easy-to-parse format for
120 scripts. See section OUTPUT in git-fetch(1) for details.
121 This is incompatible with --recurse-submodules=[yes|on-demand] and
123 takes precedence over the fetch.output config option.
124 --[no-]write-fetch-head
126 Write the list of remote refs fetched in the FETCH_HEAD file
127 directly under $GIT_DIR. This is the default. Passing
128 --no-write-fetch-head from the command line tells Git not to write
129 the file. Under --dry-run option, the file is never written.
130 -f, --force
132 When git fetch is used with <src>:<dst> refspec, it may refuse to
133 update the local branch as discussed in the <refspec> part below.
134 This option overrides that check.
135 -k, --keep
137 Keep downloaded pack.
138 --multiple
140 Allow several <repository> and <group> arguments to be specified.
141 No <refspec>s may be specified.
142 --[no-]auto-maintenance, --[no-]auto-gc
144 Run git maintenance run --auto at the end to perform automatic
145 repository maintenance if needed. (--[no-]auto-gc is a synonym.)
146 This is enabled by default.
147 --[no-]write-commit-graph
149 Write a commit-graph after fetching. This overrides the config
150 setting fetch.writeCommitGraph.
151 --prefetch
153 Modify the configured refspec to place all refs into the
154 refs/prefetch/ namespace. See the prefetch task in git-
155 maintenance(1).
156 -p, --prune
158 Before fetching, remove any remote-tracking references that no
159 longer exist on the remote. Tags are not subject to pruning if they
160 are fetched only because of the default tag auto-following or due
161 to a --tags option. However, if tags are fetched due to an explicit
162 refspec (either on the command line or in the remote configuration,
163 for example if the remote was cloned with the --mirror option),
164 then they are also subject to pruning. Supplying --prune-tags is a
165 shorthand for providing the tag refspec.
166 See the PRUNING section below for more details.
168 -P, --prune-tags
170 Before fetching, remove any local tags that no longer exist on the
171 remote if --prune is enabled. This option should be used more
172 carefully, unlike --prune it will remove any local references
173 (local tags) that have been created. This option is a shorthand for
174 providing the explicit tag refspec along with --prune, see the
175 discussion about that in its documentation.
176 See the PRUNING section below for more details.
178 -n, --no-tags
180 By default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded from the
181 remote repository are fetched and stored locally. This option
182 disables this automatic tag following. The default behavior for a
183 remote may be specified with the remote.<name>.tagOpt setting. See
184 git-config(1).
185 --refetch
187 Instead of negotiating with the server to avoid transferring
188 commits and associated objects that are already present locally,
189 this option fetches all objects as a fresh clone would. Use this to
190 reapply a partial clone filter from configuration or using
191 --filter= when the filter definition has changed. Automatic
192 post-fetch maintenance will perform object database pack
193 consolidation to remove any duplicate objects.
194 --refmap=<refspec>
196 When fetching refs listed on the command line, use the specified
197 refspec (can be given more than once) to map the refs to
198 remote-tracking branches, instead of the values of remote.*.fetch
199 configuration variables for the remote repository. Providing an
200 empty <refspec> to the --refmap option causes Git to ignore the
201 configured refspecs and rely entirely on the refspecs supplied as
202 command-line arguments. See section on "Configured Remote-tracking
203 Branches" for details.
204 -t, --tags
206 Fetch all tags from the remote (i.e., fetch remote tags refs/tags/*
207 into local tags with the same name), in addition to whatever else
208 would otherwise be fetched. Using this option alone does not
209 subject tags to pruning, even if --prune is used (though tags may
210 be pruned anyway if they are also the destination of an explicit
211 refspec; see --prune).
212 --recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]
214 This option controls if and under what conditions new commits of
215 submodules should be fetched too. When recursing through
216 submodules, git fetch always attempts to fetch "changed"
217 submodules, that is, a submodule that has commits that are
218 referenced by a newly fetched superproject commit but are missing
219 in the local submodule clone. A changed submodule can be fetched as
220 long as it is present locally e.g. in $GIT_DIR/modules/ (see
221 gitsubmodules(7)); if the upstream adds a new submodule, that
222 submodule cannot be fetched until it is cloned e.g. by git
223 submodule update.
224 When set to on-demand, only changed submodules are fetched. When
226 set to yes, all populated submodules are fetched and submodules
227 that are both unpopulated and changed are fetched. When set to no,
228 submodules are never fetched.
229 When unspecified, this uses the value of fetch.recurseSubmodules if
231 it is set (see git-config(1)), defaulting to on-demand if unset.
232 When this option is used without any value, it defaults to yes.
233 -j, --jobs=<n>
235 Number of parallel children to be used for all forms of fetching.
236 If the --multiple option was specified, the different remotes will
238 be fetched in parallel. If multiple submodules are fetched, they
239 will be fetched in parallel. To control them independently, use the
240 config settings fetch.parallel and submodule.fetchJobs (see git-
241 config(1)).
242 Typically, parallel recursive and multi-remote fetches will be
244 faster. By default fetches are performed sequentially, not in
245 parallel.
246 --no-recurse-submodules
248 Disable recursive fetching of submodules (this has the same effect
249 as using the --recurse-submodules=no option).
250 --set-upstream
252 If the remote is fetched successfully, add upstream (tracking)
253 reference, used by argument-less git-pull(1) and other commands.
254 For more information, see branch.<name>.merge and
255 branch.<name>.remote in git-config(1).
256 --submodule-prefix=<path>
258 Prepend <path> to paths printed in informative messages such as
259 "Fetching submodule foo". This option is used internally when
260 recursing over submodules.
261 --recurse-submodules-default=[yes|on-demand]
263 This option is used internally to temporarily provide a
264 non-negative default value for the --recurse-submodules option. All
265 other methods of configuring fetch’s submodule recursion (such as
266 settings in gitmodules(5) and git-config(1)) override this option,
267 as does specifying --[no-]recurse-submodules directly.
268 -u, --update-head-ok
270 By default git fetch refuses to update the head which corresponds
271 to the current branch. This flag disables the check. This is purely
272 for the internal use for git pull to communicate with git fetch,
273 and unless you are implementing your own Porcelain you are not
274 supposed to use it.
275 --upload-pack <upload-pack>
277 When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by git
278 fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the command to
279 specify non-default path for the command run on the other end.
280 -q, --quiet
282 Pass --quiet to git-fetch-pack and silence any other internally
283 used git commands. Progress is not reported to the standard error
284 stream.
285 -v, --verbose
287 Be verbose.
288 --progress
290 Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
291 when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This
292 flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is
293 not directed to a terminal.
294 -o <option>, --server-option=<option>
296 Transmit the given string to the server when communicating using
297 protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a NUL or LF
298 character. The server’s handling of server options, including
299 unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple
300 --server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the other
301 side in the order listed on the command line.
302 --show-forced-updates
304 By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch.
305 This can be disabled through fetch.showForcedUpdates, but the
306 --show-forced-updates option guarantees this check occurs. See git-
307 config(1).
308 --no-show-forced-updates
310 By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch.
311 Pass --no-show-forced-updates or set fetch.showForcedUpdates to
312 false to skip this check for performance reasons. If used during
313 git-pull the --ff-only option will still check for forced updates
314 before attempting a fast-forward update. See git-config(1).
315 -4, --ipv4
317 Use IPv4 addresses only, ignoring IPv6 addresses.
318 -6, --ipv6
320 Use IPv6 addresses only, ignoring IPv4 addresses.
321 <repository>
323 The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch or pull
324 operation. This parameter can be either a URL (see the section GIT
325 URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES
326 below).
327 <group>
329 A name referring to a list of repositories as the value of
330 remotes.<group> in the configuration file. (See git-config(1)).
331 <refspec>
333 Specifies which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. When
334 no <refspec>s appear on the command line, the refs to fetch are
335 read from remote.<repository>.fetch variables instead (see
336 CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES below).
337 The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +, followed
339 by the source <src>, followed by a colon :, followed by the
340 destination ref <dst>. The colon can be omitted when <dst> is
341 empty. <src> is typically a ref, but it can also be a fully spelled
342 hex object name.
343 A <refspec> may contain a * in its <src> to indicate a simple
345 pattern match. Such a refspec functions like a glob that matches
346 any ref with the same prefix. A pattern <refspec> must have a * in
347 both the <src> and <dst>. It will map refs to the destination by
348 replacing the * with the contents matched from the source.
349 If a refspec is prefixed by ^, it will be interpreted as a negative
351 refspec. Rather than specifying which refs to fetch or which local
352 refs to update, such a refspec will instead specify refs to
353 exclude. A ref will be considered to match if it matches at least
354 one positive refspec, and does not match any negative refspec.
355 Negative refspecs can be useful to restrict the scope of a pattern
356 refspec so that it will not include specific refs. Negative
357 refspecs can themselves be pattern refspecs. However, they may only
358 contain a <src> and do not specify a <dst>. Fully spelled out hex
359 object names are also not supported.
360 tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>; it
362 requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
363 The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is not
365 an empty string, an attempt is made to update the local ref that
366 matches it.
367 Whether that update is allowed without --force depends on the ref
369 namespace it’s being fetched to, the type of object being fetched,
370 and whether the update is considered to be a fast-forward.
371 Generally, the same rules apply for fetching as when pushing, see
372 the <refspec>... section of git-push(1) for what those are.
373 Exceptions to those rules particular to git fetch are noted below.
374 Until Git version 2.20, and unlike when pushing with git-push(1),
376 any updates to refs/tags/* would be accepted without + in the
377 refspec (or --force). When fetching, we promiscuously considered
378 all tag updates from a remote to be forced fetches. Since Git
379 version 2.20, fetching to update refs/tags/* works the same way as
380 when pushing. I.e. any updates will be rejected without + in the
381 refspec (or --force).
382 Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), any updates outside of
384 refs/{tags,heads}/* will be accepted without + in the refspec (or
385 --force), whether that’s swapping e.g. a tree object for a blob, or
386 a commit for another commit that doesn’t have the previous commit
387 as an ancestor etc.
388 Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), there is no configuration
390 which’ll amend these rules, and nothing like a pre-fetch hook
391 analogous to the pre-receive hook.
392 As with pushing with git-push(1), all of the rules described above
394 about what’s not allowed as an update can be overridden by adding
395 an optional leading + to a refspec (or using the --force command
396 line option). The only exception to this is that no amount of
397 forcing will make the refs/heads/* namespace accept a non-commit
398 object.
399 Note
401 When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be rewound
402 and rebased regularly, it is expected that its new tip will not
403 be a descendant of its previous tip (as stored in your
404 remote-tracking branch the last time you fetched). You would
405 want to use the + sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates
406 will be needed for such branches. There is no way to determine
407 or declare that a branch will be made available in a repository
408 with this behavior; the pulling user simply must know this is
409 the expected usage pattern for a branch.
410 --stdin
412 Read refspecs, one per line, from stdin in addition to those
413 provided as arguments. The "tag <name>" format is not supported.
414
416 In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
417 address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
418 on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.
419 Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp and
421 ftps can be used for fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated;
422 do not use them).
423 The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and
425 should be used with caution on unsecured networks.
426 The following syntaxes may be used with them:
428 • ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
430 • git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
432 • http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
434 • ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
436 An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
438 • [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
440 This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first
442 colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For
443 example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path
444 or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.
445 The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
447 • ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
449 • git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
451 • [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
453 For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following
455 syntaxes may be used:
456 • /path/to/repo.git/
458 • file:///path/to/repo.git/
460 These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the
462 former implies --local option. See git-clone(1) for details.
463 git clone, git fetch and git pull, but not git push, will also accept a
465 suitable bundle file. See git-bundle(1).
466 When Git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
468 attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To
469 explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:
470 • <transport>::<address>
472 where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
474 URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
475 See gitremote-helpers(7) for details.
476 If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
478 you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
479 will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
480 section of the form:
481 [url "<actual url base>"]
483 insteadOf = <other url base>
484 For example, with this:
486 [url "git://git.host.xz/"]
488 insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
489 insteadOf = work:
490 a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
492 rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
493 "git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
494 If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
496 configuration section of the form:
497 [url "<actual url base>"]
499 pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
500 For example, with this:
502 [url "ssh://example.org/"]
504 pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
505 a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
507 "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
508 use the original URL.
509
511 The name of one of the following can be used instead of a URL as
512 <repository> argument:
513 • a remote in the Git configuration file: $GIT_DIR/config,
515 • a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory, or
517 • a file in the $GIT_DIR/branches directory.
519 All of these also allow you to omit the refspec from the command line
521 because they each contain a refspec which git will use by default.
522 Named remote in configuration file
524 You can choose to provide the name of a remote which you had previously
525 configured using git-remote(1), git-config(1) or even by a manual edit
526 to the $GIT_DIR/config file. The URL of this remote will be used to
527 access the repository. The refspec of this remote will be used by
528 default when you do not provide a refspec on the command line. The
529 entry in the config file would appear like this:
530 [remote "<name>"]
532 url = <URL>
533 pushurl = <pushurl>
534 push = <refspec>
535 fetch = <refspec>
536 The <pushurl> is used for pushes only. It is optional and defaults to
538 <URL>. Pushing to a remote affects all defined pushurls or all defined
539 urls if no pushurls are defined. Fetch, however, will only fetch from
540 the first defined url if multiple urls are defined.
541 Named file in $GIT_DIR/remotes
543 You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes. The
544 URL in this file will be used to access the repository. The refspec in
545 this file will be used as default when you do not provide a refspec on
546 the command line. This file should have the following format:
547 URL: one of the above URL formats
549 Push: <refspec>
550 Pull: <refspec>
551 Push: lines are used by git push and Pull: lines are used by git pull
553 and git fetch. Multiple Push: and Pull: lines may be specified for
554 additional branch mappings.
555 Named file in $GIT_DIR/branches
557 You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches. The
558 URL in this file will be used to access the repository. This file
559 should have the following format:
560 <URL>#<head>
562 <URL> is required; #<head> is optional.
564 Depending on the operation, git will use one of the following refspecs,
566 if you don’t provide one on the command line. <branch> is the name of
567 this file in $GIT_DIR/branches and <head> defaults to master.
568 git fetch uses:
570 refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>
572 git push uses:
574 HEAD:refs/heads/<head>
576
578 You often interact with the same remote repository by regularly and
579 repeatedly fetching from it. In order to keep track of the progress of
580 such a remote repository, git fetch allows you to configure
581 remote.<repository>.fetch configuration variables.
582 Typically such a variable may look like this:
584 [remote "origin"]
586 fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
587 This configuration is used in two ways:
589 • When git fetch is run without specifying what branches and/or tags
591 to fetch on the command line, e.g. git fetch origin or git fetch,
592 remote.<repository>.fetch values are used as the refspecs—they
593 specify which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. The
594 example above will fetch all branches that exist in the origin
595 (i.e. any ref that matches the left-hand side of the value,
596 refs/heads/*) and update the corresponding remote-tracking branches
597 in the refs/remotes/origin/* hierarchy.
598 • When git fetch is run with explicit branches and/or tags to fetch
600 on the command line, e.g. git fetch origin master, the <refspec>s
601 given on the command line determine what are to be fetched (e.g.
602 master in the example, which is a short-hand for master:, which in
603 turn means "fetch the master branch but I do not explicitly say
604 what remote-tracking branch to update with it from the command
605 line"), and the example command will fetch only the master branch.
606 The remote.<repository>.fetch values determine which
607 remote-tracking branch, if any, is updated. When used in this way,
608 the remote.<repository>.fetch values do not have any effect in
609 deciding what gets fetched (i.e. the values are not used as
610 refspecs when the command-line lists refspecs); they are only used
611 to decide where the refs that are fetched are stored by acting as a
612 mapping.
613 The latter use of the remote.<repository>.fetch values can be
615 overridden by giving the --refmap=<refspec> parameter(s) on the command
616 line.
617
619 Git has a default disposition of keeping data unless it’s explicitly
620 thrown away; this extends to holding onto local references to branches
621 on remotes that have themselves deleted those branches.
622 If left to accumulate, these stale references might make performance
624 worse on big and busy repos that have a lot of branch churn, and e.g.
625 make the output of commands like git branch -a --contains <commit>
626 needlessly verbose, as well as impacting anything else that’ll work
627 with the complete set of known references.
628 These remote-tracking references can be deleted as a one-off with
630 either of:
631 # While fetching
633 $ git fetch --prune <name>
634 # Only prune, don't fetch
636 $ git remote prune <name>
637 To prune references as part of your normal workflow without needing to
639 remember to run that, set fetch.prune globally, or remote.<name>.prune
640 per-remote in the config. See git-config(1).
641 Here’s where things get tricky and more specific. The pruning feature
643 doesn’t actually care about branches, instead it’ll prune local ←→
644 remote-references as a function of the refspec of the remote (see
645 <refspec> and CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES above).
646 Therefore if the refspec for the remote includes e.g.
648 refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*, or you manually run e.g. git fetch --prune
649 <name> "refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*" it won’t be stale remote tracking
650 branches that are deleted, but any local tag that doesn’t exist on the
651 remote.
652 This might not be what you expect, i.e. you want to prune remote
654 <name>, but also explicitly fetch tags from it, so when you fetch from
655 it you delete all your local tags, most of which may not have come from
656 the <name> remote in the first place.
657 So be careful when using this with a refspec like
659 refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*, or any other refspec which might map
660 references from multiple remotes to the same local namespace.
661 Since keeping up-to-date with both branches and tags on the remote is a
663 common use-case the --prune-tags option can be supplied along with
664 --prune to prune local tags that don’t exist on the remote, and
665 force-update those tags that differ. Tag pruning can also be enabled
666 with fetch.pruneTags or remote.<name>.pruneTags in the config. See git-
667 config(1).
668 The --prune-tags option is equivalent to having refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*
670 declared in the refspecs of the remote. This can lead to some seemingly
671 strange interactions:
672 # These both fetch tags
674 $ git fetch --no-tags origin 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
675 $ git fetch --no-tags --prune-tags origin
676 The reason it doesn’t error out when provided without --prune or its
678 config versions is for flexibility of the configured versions, and to
679 maintain a 1=1 mapping between what the command line flags do, and what
680 the configuration versions do.
681 It’s reasonable to e.g. configure fetch.pruneTags=true in ~/.gitconfig
683 to have tags pruned whenever git fetch --prune is run, without making
684 every invocation of git fetch without --prune an error.
685 Pruning tags with --prune-tags also works when fetching a URL instead
687 of a named remote. These will all prune tags not found on origin:
688 $ git fetch origin --prune --prune-tags
690 $ git fetch origin --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
691 $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune --prune-tags
692 $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
693
695 The output of "git fetch" depends on the transport method used; this
696 section describes the output when fetching over the Git protocol
697 (either locally or via ssh) and Smart HTTP protocol.
698 The status of the fetch is output in tabular form, with each line
700 representing the status of a single ref. Each line is of the form:
701 <flag> <summary> <from> -> <to> [<reason>]
703 When using --porcelain, the output format is intended to be
705 machine-parseable. In contrast to the human-readable output formats it
706 thus prints to standard output instead of standard error. Each line is
707 of the form:
708 <flag> <old-object-id> <new-object-id> <local-reference>
710 The status of up-to-date refs is shown only if the --verbose option is
712 used.
713 In compact output mode, specified with configuration variable
715 fetch.output, if either entire <from> or <to> is found in the other
716 string, it will be substituted with * in the other string. For example,
717 master -> origin/master becomes master -> origin/*.
718 flag
720 A single character indicating the status of the ref:
721 (space)
723 for a successfully fetched fast-forward;
724 +
726 for a successful forced update;
727 -
729 for a successfully pruned ref;
730 t
732 for a successful tag update;
733 *
735 for a successfully fetched new ref;
736 !
738 for a ref that was rejected or failed to update; and
739 =
741 for a ref that was up to date and did not need fetching.
742 summary
744 For a successfully fetched ref, the summary shows the old and new
745 values of the ref in a form suitable for using as an argument to
746 git log (this is <old>..<new> in most cases, and <old>...<new> for
747 forced non-fast-forward updates).
748 from
750 The name of the remote ref being fetched from, minus its
751 refs/<type>/ prefix. In the case of deletion, the name of the
752 remote ref is "(none)".
753 to
755 The name of the local ref being updated, minus its refs/<type>/
756 prefix.
757 reason
759 A human-readable explanation. In the case of successfully fetched
760 refs, no explanation is needed. For a failed ref, the reason for
761 failure is described.
762
764 • Update the remote-tracking branches:
765 $ git fetch origin
767 The above command copies all branches from the remote refs/heads/
769 namespace and stores them to the local refs/remotes/origin/
770 namespace, unless the remote.<repository>.fetch option is used to
771 specify a non-default refspec.
772 • Using refspecs explicitly:
774 $ git fetch origin +seen:seen maint:tmp
776 This updates (or creates, as necessary) branches seen and tmp in
778 the local repository by fetching from the branches (respectively)
779 seen and maint from the remote repository.
780 The seen branch will be updated even if it does not fast-forward,
782 because it is prefixed with a plus sign; tmp will not be.
783 • Peek at a remote’s branch, without configuring the remote in your
785 local repository:
786 $ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git maint
788 $ git log FETCH_HEAD
789 The first command fetches the maint branch from the repository at
791 git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git and the second command
792 uses FETCH_HEAD to examine the branch with git-log(1). The fetched
793 objects will eventually be removed by git’s built-in housekeeping
794 (see git-gc(1)).
795
797 The fetch and push protocols are not designed to prevent one side from
798 stealing data from the other repository that was not intended to be
799 shared. If you have private data that you need to protect from a
800 malicious peer, your best option is to store it in another repository.
801 This applies to both clients and servers. In particular, namespaces on
802 a server are not effective for read access control; you should only
803 grant read access to a namespace to clients that you would trust with
804 read access to the entire repository.
805 The known attack vectors are as follows:
807 1. The victim sends "have" lines advertising the IDs of objects it has
809 that are not explicitly intended to be shared but can be used to
810 optimize the transfer if the peer also has them. The attacker
811 chooses an object ID X to steal and sends a ref to X, but isn’t
812 required to send the content of X because the victim already has
813 it. Now the victim believes that the attacker has X, and it sends
814 the content of X back to the attacker later. (This attack is most
815 straightforward for a client to perform on a server, by creating a
816 ref to X in the namespace the client has access to and then
817 fetching it. The most likely way for a server to perform it on a
818 client is to "merge" X into a public branch and hope that the user
819 does additional work on this branch and pushes it back to the
820 server without noticing the merge.)
821 2. As in #1, the attacker chooses an object ID X to steal. The victim
823 sends an object Y that the attacker already has, and the attacker
824 falsely claims to have X and not Y, so the victim sends Y as a
825 delta against X. The delta reveals regions of X that are similar to
826 Y to the attacker.
827
829 Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from
830 the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what’s
831 found there:
832 fetch.recurseSubmodules
834 This option controls whether git fetch (and the underlying fetch in
835 git pull) will recursively fetch into populated submodules. This
836 option can be set either to a boolean value or to on-demand.
837 Setting it to a boolean changes the behavior of fetch and pull to
838 recurse unconditionally into submodules when set to true or to not
839 recurse at all when set to false. When set to on-demand, fetch and
840 pull will only recurse into a populated submodule when its
841 superproject retrieves a commit that updates the submodule’s
842 reference. Defaults to on-demand, or to the value of
843 submodule.recurse if set.
844 fetch.fsckObjects
846 If it is set to true, git-fetch-pack will check all fetched
847 objects. See transfer.fsckObjects for what’s checked. Defaults to
848 false. If not set, the value of transfer.fsckObjects is used
849 instead.
850 fetch.fsck.<msg-id>
852 Acts like fsck.<msg-id>, but is used by git-fetch-pack(1) instead
853 of git-fsck(1). See the fsck.<msg-id> documentation for details.
854 fetch.fsck.skipList
856 Acts like fsck.skipList, but is used by git-fetch-pack(1) instead
857 of git-fsck(1). See the fsck.skipList documentation for details.
858 fetch.unpackLimit
860 If the number of objects fetched over the Git native transfer is
861 below this limit, then the objects will be unpacked into loose
862 object files. However if the number of received objects equals or
863 exceeds this limit then the received pack will be stored as a pack,
864 after adding any missing delta bases. Storing the pack from a push
865 can make the push operation complete faster, especially on slow
866 filesystems. If not set, the value of transfer.unpackLimit is used
867 instead.
868 fetch.prune
870 If true, fetch will automatically behave as if the --prune option
871 was given on the command line. See also remote.<name>.prune and the
872 PRUNING section of git-fetch(1).
873 fetch.pruneTags
875 If true, fetch will automatically behave as if the
876 refs/tags/*:refs/tags/* refspec was provided when pruning, if not
877 set already. This allows for setting both this option and
878 fetch.prune to maintain a 1=1 mapping to upstream refs. See also
879 remote.<name>.pruneTags and the PRUNING section of git-fetch(1).
880 fetch.output
882 Control how ref update status is printed. Valid values are full and
883 compact. Default value is full. See the OUTPUT section in git-
884 fetch(1) for details.
885 fetch.negotiationAlgorithm
887 Control how information about the commits in the local repository
888 is sent when negotiating the contents of the packfile to be sent by
889 the server. Set to "consecutive" to use an algorithm that walks
890 over consecutive commits checking each one. Set to "skipping" to
891 use an algorithm that skips commits in an effort to converge
892 faster, but may result in a larger-than-necessary packfile; or set
893 to "noop" to not send any information at all, which will almost
894 certainly result in a larger-than-necessary packfile, but will skip
895 the negotiation step. Set to "default" to override settings made
896 previously and use the default behaviour. The default is normally
897 "consecutive", but if feature.experimental is true, then the
898 default is "skipping". Unknown values will cause git fetch to error
899 out.
900 See also the --negotiate-only and --negotiation-tip options to git-
902 fetch(1).
903 fetch.showForcedUpdates
905 Set to false to enable --no-show-forced-updates in git-fetch(1) and
906 git-pull(1) commands. Defaults to true.
907 fetch.parallel
909 Specifies the maximal number of fetch operations to be run in
910 parallel at a time (submodules, or remotes when the --multiple
911 option of git-fetch(1) is in effect).
912 A value of 0 will give some reasonable default. If unset, it
914 defaults to 1.
915 For submodules, this setting can be overridden using the
917 submodule.fetchJobs config setting.
918 fetch.writeCommitGraph
920 Set to true to write a commit-graph after every git fetch command
921 that downloads a pack-file from a remote. Using the --split option,
922 most executions will create a very small commit-graph file on top
923 of the existing commit-graph file(s). Occasionally, these files
924 will merge and the write may take longer. Having an updated
925 commit-graph file helps performance of many Git commands, including
926 git merge-base, git push -f, and git log --graph. Defaults to
927 false.
928 fetch.bundleURI
930 This value stores a URI for downloading Git object data from a
931 bundle URI before performing an incremental fetch from the origin
932 Git server. This is similar to how the --bundle-uri option behaves
933 in git-clone(1). git clone --bundle-uri will set the
934 fetch.bundleURI value if the supplied bundle URI contains a bundle
935 list that is organized for incremental fetches.
936 If you modify this value and your repository has a
938 fetch.bundleCreationToken value, then remove that
939 fetch.bundleCreationToken value before fetching from the new bundle
940 URI.
941 fetch.bundleCreationToken
943 When using fetch.bundleURI to fetch incrementally from a bundle
944 list that uses the "creationToken" heuristic, this config value
945 stores the maximum creationToken value of the downloaded bundles.
946 This value is used to prevent downloading bundles in the future if
947 the advertised creationToken is not strictly larger than this
948 value.
949 The creation token values are chosen by the provider serving the
951 specific bundle URI. If you modify the URI at fetch.bundleURI, then
952 be sure to remove the value for the fetch.bundleCreationToken value
953 before fetching.
954
956 Using --recurse-submodules can only fetch new commits in submodules
957 that are present locally e.g. in $GIT_DIR/modules/. If the upstream
958 adds a new submodule, that submodule cannot be fetched until it is
959 cloned e.g. by git submodule update. This is expected to be fixed in a
960 future Git version.
961
963 git-pull(1)
964
966 Part of the git(1) suite
967Git 2.43.0 11/20/2023 GIT-FETCH(1)