1git-bundle(1) 2============= 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-bundle - Move objects and refs by archive 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11[verse] 12'git bundle' create <file> <git-rev-list-args> 13'git bundle' verify <file> 14'git bundle' list-heads <file> [<refname>...] 15'git bundle' unbundle <file> [<refname>...] 16 17DESCRIPTION 18----------- 19 20Some workflows require that one or more branches of development on one 21machine be replicated on another machine, but the two machines cannot 22be directly connected, and therefore the interactive git protocols (git, 23ssh, rsync, http) cannot be used. This command provides support for 24'git fetch' and 'git pull' to operate by packaging objects and references 25in an archive at the originating machine, then importing those into 26another repository using 'git fetch' and 'git pull' 27after moving the archive by some means (e.g., by sneakernet). As no 28direct connection between the repositories exists, the user must specify a 29basis for the bundle that is held by the destination repository: the 30bundle assumes that all objects in the basis are already in the 31destination repository. 32 33OPTIONS 34------- 35 36create <file>:: 37 Used to create a bundle named 'file'. This requires the 38 'git-rev-list-args' arguments to define the bundle contents. 39 40verify <file>:: 41 Used to check that a bundle file is valid and will apply 42 cleanly to the current repository. This includes checks on the 43 bundle format itself as well as checking that the prerequisite 44 commits exist and are fully linked in the current repository. 45 'git bundle' prints a list of missing commits, if any, and exits 46 with a non-zero status. 47 48list-heads <file>:: 49 Lists the references defined in the bundle. If followed by a 50 list of references, only references matching those given are 51 printed out. 52 53unbundle <file>:: 54 Passes the objects in the bundle to 'git index-pack' 55 for storage in the repository, then prints the names of all 56 defined references. If a list of references is given, only 57 references matching those in the list are printed. This command is 58 really plumbing, intended to be called only by 'git fetch'. 59 60<git-rev-list-args>:: 61 A list of arguments, acceptable to 'git rev-parse' and 62 'git rev-list' (and containing a named ref, see SPECIFYING REFERENCES 63 below), that specifies the specific objects and references 64 to transport. For example, `master{tilde}10..master` causes the 65 current master reference to be packaged along with all objects 66 added since its 10th ancestor commit. There is no explicit 67 limit to the number of references and objects that may be 68 packaged. 69 70 71[<refname>...]:: 72 A list of references used to limit the references reported as 73 available. This is principally of use to 'git fetch', which 74 expects to receive only those references asked for and not 75 necessarily everything in the pack (in this case, 'git bundle' acts 76 like 'git fetch-pack'). 77 78SPECIFYING REFERENCES 79--------------------- 80 81'git bundle' will only package references that are shown by 82'git show-ref': this includes heads, tags, and remote heads. References 83such as `master{tilde}1` cannot be packaged, but are perfectly suitable for 84defining the basis. More than one reference may be packaged, and more 85than one basis can be specified. The objects packaged are those not 86contained in the union of the given bases. Each basis can be 87specified explicitly (e.g. `^master{tilde}10`), or implicitly (e.g. 88`master{tilde}10..master`, `--since=10.days.ago master`). 89 90It is very important that the basis used be held by the destination. 91It is okay to err on the side of caution, causing the bundle file 92to contain objects already in the destination, as these are ignored 93when unpacking at the destination. 94 95EXAMPLE 96------- 97 98Assume you want to transfer the history from a repository R1 on machine A 99to another repository R2 on machine B. 100For whatever reason, direct connection between A and B is not allowed, 101but we can move data from A to B via some mechanism (CD, email, etc.). 102We want to update R2 with development made on the branch master in R1. 103 104To bootstrap the process, you can first create a bundle that does not have 105any basis. You can use a tag to remember up to what commit you last 106processed, in order to make it easy to later update the other repository 107with an incremental bundle: 108 109---------------- 110machineA$ cd R1 111machineA$ git bundle create file.bundle master 112machineA$ git tag -f lastR2bundle master 113---------------- 114 115Then you transfer file.bundle to the target machine B. If you are creating 116the repository on machine B, then you can clone from the bundle as if it 117were a remote repository instead of creating an empty repository and then 118pulling or fetching objects from the bundle: 119 120---------------- 121machineB$ git clone /home/me/tmp/file.bundle R2 122---------------- 123 124This will define a remote called "origin" in the resulting repository that 125lets you fetch and pull from the bundle. The $GIT_DIR/config file in R2 will 126have an entry like this: 127 128------------------------ 129[remote "origin"] 130 url = /home/me/tmp/file.bundle 131 fetch = refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* 132------------------------ 133 134To update the resulting mine.git repository, you can fetch or pull after 135replacing the bundle stored at /home/me/tmp/file.bundle with incremental 136updates. 137 138After working some more in the original repository, you can create an 139incremental bundle to update the other repository: 140 141---------------- 142machineA$ cd R1 143machineA$ git bundle create file.bundle lastR2bundle..master 144machineA$ git tag -f lastR2bundle master 145---------------- 146 147You then transfer the bundle to the other machine to replace 148/home/me/tmp/file.bundle, and pull from it. 149 150---------------- 151machineB$ cd R2 152machineB$ git pull 153---------------- 154 155If you know up to what commit the intended recipient repository should 156have the necessary objects, you can use that knowledge to specify the 157basis, giving a cut-off point to limit the revisions and objects that go 158in the resulting bundle. The previous example used the lastR2bundle tag 159for this purpose, but you can use any other options that you would give to 160the linkgit:git-log[1] command. Here are more examples: 161 162You can use a tag that is present in both: 163 164---------------- 165$ git bundle create mybundle v1.0.0..master 166---------------- 167 168You can use a basis based on time: 169 170---------------- 171$ git bundle create mybundle --since=10.days master 172---------------- 173 174You can use the number of commits: 175 176---------------- 177$ git bundle create mybundle -10 master 178---------------- 179 180You can run `git-bundle verify` to see if you can extract from a bundle 181that was created with a basis: 182 183---------------- 184$ git bundle verify mybundle 185---------------- 186 187This will list what commits you must have in order to extract from the 188bundle and will error out if you do not have them. 189 190A bundle from a recipient repository's point of view is just like a 191regular repository which it fetches or pulls from. You can, for example, map 192references when fetching: 193 194---------------- 195$ git fetch mybundle master:localRef 196---------------- 197 198You can also see what references it offers: 199 200---------------- 201$ git ls-remote mybundle 202---------------- 203 204GIT 205--- 206Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite