'\" t
.\" Title: git-clone
.\" Author: [FIXME: author] [see http://docbook.sf.net/el/author]
.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets v1.75.2 <http://docbook.sf.net/>
.\" Date: 06/01/2011
.\" Manual: Git Manual
.\" Source: Git 1.7.5.4
.\" Language: English
.\"
.TH "GIT\-CLONE" "1" "06/01/2011" "Git 1\&.7\&.5\&.4" "Git Manual"
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.nh
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.SH "NAME"
git-clone \- Clone a repository into a new directory
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.sp
.nf
\fIgit clone\fR [\-\-template=<template_directory>]
[\-l] [\-s] [\-\-no\-hardlinks] [\-q] [\-n] [\-\-bare] [\-\-mirror]
[\-o <name>] [\-b <name>] [\-u <upload\-pack>] [\-\-reference <repository>]
[\-\-separate\-git\-dir <git dir>]
[\-\-depth <depth>] [\-\-recursive|\-\-recurse\-submodules] [\-\-] <repository>
[<directory>]
.fi
.sp
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.sp
Clones a repository into a newly created directory, creates remote\-tracking branches for each branch in the cloned repository (visible using git branch \-r), and creates and checks out an initial branch that is forked from the cloned repository\(cqs currently active branch\&.
.sp
After the clone, a plain git fetch without arguments will update all the remote\-tracking branches, and a git pull without arguments will in addition merge the remote master branch into the current master branch, if any\&.
.sp
This default configuration is achieved by creating references to the remote branch heads under refs/remotes/origin and by initializing remote\&.origin\&.url and remote\&.origin\&.fetch configuration variables\&.
.SH "OPTIONS"
.PP
\-\-local, \-l
.RS 4
When the repository to clone from is on a local machine, this flag bypasses the normal "git aware" transport mechanism and clones the repository by making a copy of HEAD and everything under objects and refs directories\&. The files under
\&.git/objects/
directory are hardlinked to save space when possible\&. This is now the default when the source repository is specified with
/path/to/repo
syntax, so it essentially is a no\-op option\&. To force copying instead of hardlinking (which may be desirable if you are trying to make a back\-up of your repository), but still avoid the usual "git aware" transport mechanism,
\-\-no\-hardlinks
can be used\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-no\-hardlinks
.RS 4
Optimize the cloning process from a repository on a local filesystem by copying files under
\&.git/objects
directory\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-shared, \-s
.RS 4
When the repository to clone is on the local machine, instead of using hard links, automatically setup
\&.git/objects/info/alternates
to share the objects with the source repository\&. The resulting repository starts out without any object of its own\&.
.sp
\fBNOTE\fR: this is a possibly dangerous operation; do
\fBnot\fR
use it unless you understand what it does\&. If you clone your repository using this option and then delete branches (or use any other git command that makes any existing commit unreferenced) in the source repository, some objects may become unreferenced (or dangling)\&. These objects may be removed by normal git operations (such as
git commit) which automatically call
git gc \-\-auto\&. (See
\fBgit-gc\fR(1)\&.) If these objects are removed and were referenced by the cloned repository, then the cloned repository will become corrupt\&.
.sp
Note that running
git repack
without the
\-l
option in a repository cloned with
\-s
will copy objects from the source repository into a pack in the cloned repository, removing the disk space savings of
clone \-s\&. It is safe, however, to run
git gc, which uses the
\-l
option by default\&.
.sp
If you want to break the dependency of a repository cloned with
\-s
on its source repository, you can simply run
git repack \-a
to copy all objects from the source repository into a pack in the cloned repository\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-reference <repository>
.RS 4
If the reference repository is on the local machine, automatically setup
\&.git/objects/info/alternates
to obtain objects from the reference repository\&. Using an already existing repository as an alternate will require fewer objects to be copied from the repository being cloned, reducing network and local storage costs\&.
.sp
\fBNOTE\fR: see the NOTE for the
\-\-shared
option\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-quiet, \-q
.RS 4
Operate quietly\&. Progress is not reported to the standard error stream\&. This flag is also passed to the \(oqrsync\(cq command when given\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-verbose, \-v
.RS 4
Run verbosely\&. Does not affect the reporting of progress status to the standard error stream\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-progress
.RS 4
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless \-q is specified\&. This flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is not directed to a terminal\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-no\-checkout, \-n
.RS 4
No checkout of HEAD is performed after the clone is complete\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-bare
.RS 4
Make a
\fIbare\fR
GIT repository\&. That is, instead of creating
<directory>
and placing the administrative files in
<directory>/\&.git, make the
<directory>
itself the
$GIT_DIR\&. This obviously implies the
\-n
because there is nowhere to check out the working tree\&. Also the branch heads at the remote are copied directly to corresponding local branch heads, without mapping them to
refs/remotes/origin/\&. When this option is used, neither remote\-tracking branches nor the related configuration variables are created\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-mirror
.RS 4
Set up a mirror of the source repository\&. This implies
\-\-bare\&. Compared to
\-\-bare,
\-\-mirror
not only maps local branches of the source to local branches of the target, it maps all refs (including remote\-tracking branches, notes etc\&.) and sets up a refspec configuration such that all these refs are overwritten by a
git remote update
in the target repository\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-origin <name>, \-o <name>
.RS 4
Instead of using the remote name
origin
to keep track of the upstream repository, use
<name>\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-branch <name>, \-b <name>
.RS 4
Instead of pointing the newly created HEAD to the branch pointed to by the cloned repository\(cqs HEAD, point to
<name>
branch instead\&. In a non\-bare repository, this is the branch that will be checked out\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-upload\-pack <upload\-pack>, \-u <upload\-pack>
.RS 4
When given, and the repository to clone from is accessed via ssh, this specifies a non\-default path for the command run on the other end\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-template=<template_directory>
.RS 4
Specify the directory from which templates will be used; (See the "TEMPLATE DIRECTORY" section of
\fBgit-init\fR(1)\&.)
.RE
.PP
\-\-depth <depth>
.RS 4
Create a
\fIshallow\fR
clone with a history truncated to the specified number of revisions\&. A shallow repository has a number of limitations (you cannot clone or fetch from it, nor push from nor into it), but is adequate if you are only interested in the recent history of a large project with a long history, and would want to send in fixes as patches\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-recursive, \-\-recurse\-submodules
.RS 4
After the clone is created, initialize all submodules within, using their default settings\&. This is equivalent to running
git submodule update \-\-init \-\-recursive
immediately after the clone is finished\&. This option is ignored if the cloned repository does not have a worktree/checkout (i\&.e\&. if any of
\-\-no\-checkout/\-n,
\-\-bare, or
\-\-mirror
is given)
.RE
.PP
\-\-separate\-git\-dir=<git dir>
.RS 4
Instead of placing the cloned repository where it is supposed to be, place the cloned repository at the specified directory, then make a filesytem\-agnostic git symbolic link to there\&. The result is git repository can be separated from working tree\&.
.RE
.PP
<repository>
.RS 4
The (possibly remote) repository to clone from\&. See the
URLS
section below for more information on specifying repositories\&.
.RE
.PP
<directory>
.RS 4
The name of a new directory to clone into\&. The "humanish" part of the source repository is used if no directory is explicitly given (repo
for
/path/to/repo\&.git
and
foo
for
host\&.xz:foo/\&.git)\&. Cloning into an existing directory is only allowed if the directory is empty\&.
.RE
.SH "GIT URLS"
.sp
In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the address of the remote server, and the path to the repository\&. Depending on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent\&.
.sp
Git natively supports ssh, git, http, https, ftp, ftps, and rsync protocols\&. The following syntaxes may be used with them:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
ssh://[user@]host\&.xz[:port]/path/to/repo\&.git/
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
git://host\&.xz[:port]/path/to/repo\&.git/
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
http[s]://host\&.xz[:port]/path/to/repo\&.git/
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
ftp[s]://host\&.xz[:port]/path/to/repo\&.git/
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
rsync://host\&.xz/path/to/repo\&.git/
.RE
.sp
An alternative scp\-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
[user@]host\&.xz:path/to/repo\&.git/
.RE
.sp
The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
ssh://[user@]host\&.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo\&.git/
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
git://host\&.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo\&.git/
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
[user@]host\&.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo\&.git/
.RE
.sp
For local repositories, also supported by git natively, the following syntaxes may be used:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
/path/to/repo\&.git/
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
\m[blue]\fBfile:///path/to/repo\&.git/\fR\m[]
.RE
.sp
These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except the former implies \-\-local option\&.
.sp
When git doesn\(cqt know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it attempts to use the \fIremote\-<transport>\fR remote helper, if one exists\&. To explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
<transport>::<address>
.RE
.sp
where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary URL\-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked\&. See \fBgit-remote-helpers\fR(1) for details\&.
.sp
If there are a large number of similarly\-named remote repositories and you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration section of the form:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
[url "<actual url base>"]
insteadOf = <other url base>
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.sp
.sp
For example, with this:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
[url "git://git\&.host\&.xz/"]
insteadOf = host\&.xz:/path/to/
insteadOf = work:
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.sp
.sp
a URL like "work:repo\&.git" or like "host\&.xz:/path/to/repo\&.git" will be rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be "git://git\&.host\&.xz/repo\&.git"\&.
.sp
If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a configuration section of the form:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
[url "<actual url base>"]
pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.sp
.sp
For example, with this:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
[url "ssh://example\&.org/"]
pushInsteadOf = git://example\&.org/
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.sp
.sp
a URL like "git://example\&.org/path/to/repo\&.git" will be rewritten to "ssh://example\&.org/path/to/repo\&.git" for pushes, but pulls will still use the original URL\&.
.SH "EXAMPLES"
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
Clone from upstream:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
$ git clone git://git\&.kernel\&.org/pub/scm/\&.\&.\&./linux\-2\&.6 my2\&.6
$ cd my2\&.6
$ make
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.sp
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
Make a local clone that borrows from the current directory, without checking things out:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
$ git clone \-l \-s \-n \&. \&.\&./copy
$ cd \&.\&./copy
$ git show\-branch
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.sp
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
Clone from upstream while borrowing from an existing local directory:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
$ git clone \-\-reference my2\&.6 \e
git://git\&.kernel\&.org/pub/scm/\&.\&.\&./linux\-2\&.7 \e
my2\&.7
$ cd my2\&.7
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.sp
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
Create a bare repository to publish your changes to the public:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
$ git clone \-\-bare \-l /home/proj/\&.git /pub/scm/proj\&.git
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.sp
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
Create a repository on the kernel\&.org machine that borrows from Linus:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
$ git clone \-\-bare \-l \-s /pub/scm/\&.\&.\&./torvalds/linux\-2\&.6\&.git \e
/pub/scm/\&.\&.\&./me/subsys\-2\&.6\&.git
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.sp
.RE
.SH "GIT"
.sp
Part of the \fBgit\fR(1) suite