GIT URLS[[URLS]]
----------------
-One of the following notations can be used
-to name the remote repository:
+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:
-- rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
-- http://host.xz{startsb}:port{endsb}/path/to/repo.git/
-- https://host.xz{startsb}:port{endsb}/path/to/repo.git/
-- git://host.xz{startsb}:port{endsb}/path/to/repo.git/
-- git://host.xz{startsb}:port{endsb}/~user/path/to/repo.git/
- ssh://{startsb}user@{endsb}host.xz{startsb}:port{endsb}/path/to/repo.git/
-- ssh://{startsb}user@{endsb}host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
-- ssh://{startsb}user@{endsb}host.xz/~user/path/to/repo.git/
-- ssh://{startsb}user@{endsb}host.xz/~/path/to/repo.git
+- git://host.xz{startsb}:port{endsb}/path/to/repo.git/
+- http{startsb}s{endsb}://host.xz{startsb}:port{endsb}/path/to/repo.git/
+- ftp{startsb}s{endsb}://host.xz{startsb}:port{endsb}/path/to/repo.git/
+- rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
+
+An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
+
+- {startsb}user@{endsb}host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
-SSH is the default transport protocol over the network. You can
-optionally specify which user to log-in as, and an alternate,
-scp-like syntax is also supported. Both syntaxes support
-username expansion, as does the native git protocol, but
-only the former supports port specification. The following
-three are identical to the last three above, respectively:
+The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
-- {startsb}user@{endsb}host.xz:/path/to/repo.git/
-- {startsb}user@{endsb}host.xz:~user/path/to/repo.git/
-- {startsb}user@{endsb}host.xz:path/to/repo.git
+- ssh://{startsb}user@{endsb}host.xz{startsb}:port{endsb}/~{startsb}user{endsb}/path/to/repo.git/
+- git://host.xz{startsb}:port{endsb}/~{startsb}user{endsb}/path/to/repo.git/
+- {startsb}user@{endsb}host.xz:/~{startsb}user{endsb}/path/to/repo.git/
-To sync with a local directory, you can use:
+For local repositories, also supported by git natively, the following
+syntaxes may be used:
- /path/to/repo.git/
- file:///path/to/repo.git/
ifndef::git-clone[]
-They are mostly equivalent, except when cloning. See
-linkgit:git-clone[1] for details.
+These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when
+the former implies --local option. See linkgit:git-clone[1] for
+details.
endif::git-clone[]
ifdef::git-clone[]
-They are equivalent, except the former implies --local option.
+These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except the former implies
+--local option.
endif::git-clone[]
+When git doesn'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:
+
+- <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 linkgit: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