GIT-CLONE(1)                                                      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>] [--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&#8217;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 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. 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.


       --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 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.

              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.


       --reference <repository>
              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.

              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 &#8216;rsync&#8217;
              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&#8217;s HEAD, point to <name> branch
              instead. In a non-bare repository, this is the branch that will
              be checked out.


       --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).)


       --depth <depth>
              Create a shallow 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.


       --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 natively supports ssh, git, http, https, ftp, ftps, and rsync
       protocols. The following syntaxes may be used with them:


       o  ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       o  git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       o  http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       o  ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       o  rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/

       An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:


       o  [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/

       The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:


       o  ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/

       o  git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/

       o  [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/

       For local repositories, also supported by git natively, the following
       syntaxes may be used:


       o  /path/to/repo.git/

       o
           file:///path/to/repo.git/: file:///path/to/repo.git/

       These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except the former implies
       --local option.


       When git doesn&#8217;t know how to handle a certain transport protocol,
       it attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists.
       To explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be
       used:


       o  <transport>::<address>

       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 git-remote-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
       o  Clone from upstream:


          $ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux-2.6 my2.6
          $ cd my2.6
          $ make


       o  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


       o  Clone from upstream while borrowing from an existing local
          directory:


          $ git clone --reference my2.6 \
                  git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../linux-2.7 \
                  my2.7
          $ cd my2.7


       o  Create a bare repository to publish your changes to the public:


          $ git clone --bare -l /home/proj/.git /pub/scm/proj.git


       o  Create a repository on the kernel.org machine that borrows from
          Linus:


          $ 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-CLONE(1)
