GIT-CLONE(1) Git Manual GIT-CLONE(1)
NAME
git-clone - Clone a repository into a new directory
SYNOPSIS
git clone [--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>] [--[no-]single-branch]
[--recursive | --recurse-submodules] [--] <repository>
[<directory>]
DESCRIPTION
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’s currently active branch.
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
(this is untrue when "--single-branch" is given; see below).
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.
OPTIONS
--local, -l
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.
If the repository is specified as a local path (e.g., /path/to/repo), this is the default, and --local is
essentially a no-op. If the repository is specified as a URL, then this flag is ignored (and we never use
the local optimizations). Specifying --no-local will override the default when /path/to/repo is given,
using the regular Git transport instead.
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.
--no-hardlinks
Optimize the cloning process from a repository on a local filesystem by copying files under .git/objects
directory.
--shared, -s
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.
NOTE: this is a possibly dangerous operation; do not 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 git-gc(1).) If these objects are removed and were referenced by the cloned
repository, then the cloned repository will become corrupt.
Note that running git repack without the -l option in a repository cloned with -s will copy objects from
NOTE: see the NOTE for the --shared option.
--quiet, -q
Operate quietly. Progress is not reported to the standard error stream. This flag is also passed to the
‘rsync’ command when given.
--verbose, -v
Run verbosely. Does not affect the reporting of progress status to the standard error stream.
--progress
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.
--no-checkout, -n
No checkout of HEAD is performed after the clone is complete.
--bare
Make a bare 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.
--mirror
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.
--origin <name>, -o <name>
Instead of using the remote name origin to keep track of the upstream repository, use <name>.
--branch <name>, -b <name>
Instead of pointing the newly created HEAD to the branch pointed to by the cloned repository’s HEAD, point
to <name> branch instead. In a non-bare repository, this is the branch that will be checked out. --branch
can also take tags and detaches the HEAD at that commit in the resulting repository.
--upload-pack <upload-pack>, -u <upload-pack>
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.
--template=<template_directory>
Specify the directory from which templates will be used; (See the "TEMPLATE DIRECTORY" section of git-
init(1).)
--config <key>=<value>, -c <key>=<value>
Set a configuration variable in the newly-created repository; this takes effect immediately after the
repository is initialized, but before the remote history is fetched or any files checked out. The key is
in the same format as expected by git-config(1) (e.g., core.eol=true). If multiple values are given for
the same key, each value will be written to the config file. This makes it safe, for example, to add
additional fetch refspecs to the origin remote.
--single-branch clone was made, no remote-tracking branch is created.
--recursive, --recurse-submodules
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)
--separate-git-dir=<git dir>
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.
<repository>
The (possibly remote) repository to clone from. See the URLS section below for more information on
specifying repositories.
<directory>
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.
GIT URLS
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.
Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and ftps can be used for fetching and
rsync can be used for fetching and pushing, but these are inefficient and deprecated; do not use them).
The following syntaxes may be used with them:
· ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
· git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
· http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
· ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
· rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
· [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
· ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
· git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
· [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following syntaxes may be used:
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 gitremote-helpers(1) for details.
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:
[url "<actual url base>"]
insteadOf = <other url base>
For example, with this:
[url "git://git.host.xz/"]
insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
insteadOf = work:
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".
If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a configuration section of the form:
[url "<actual url base>"]
pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
For example, with this:
[url "ssh://example.org/"]
pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
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.
EXAMPLES
· Clone from upstream:
$ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux-2.6 my2.6
$ cd my2.6
$ make
· Make a local clone that borrows from the current directory, without checking things out:
$ git clone -l -s -n . ../copy
$ cd ../copy
$ git show-branch
· Clone from upstream while borrowing from an existing local directory:
$ git clone --reference my2.6 \
$ git clone --bare -l -s /pub/scm/.../torvalds/linux-2.6.git \
/pub/scm/.../me/subsys-2.6.git
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 1.8.3.1 03/23/2016 GIT-CLONE(1)
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