GIT-BUNDLE(1)GIT-BUNDLE(1)NAMEgit-bundle - Move objects and refs by archive
SYNOPSIS
git bundle create <file> <git-rev-list-args>
git bundle verify <file>
git bundle list-heads <file> [<refname>...]
git bundle unbundle <file> [<refname>...]
DESCRIPTION
Some workflows require that one or more branches of development on one
machine be replicated on another machine, but the two machines cannot
be directly connected, and therefore the interactive git protocols
(git, ssh, rsync, http) cannot be used. This command provides support
for git fetch and git pull to operate by packaging objects and refer-
ences in an archive at the originating machine, then importing those
into another repository using git fetch and git pull after moving the
archive by some means (e.g., by sneakernet). As no direct connection
between the repositories exists, the user must specify a basis for the
bundle that is held by the destination repository: the bundle assumes
that all objects in the basis are already in the destination reposi-
tory.
OPTIONS
create <file>
Used to create a bundle named file. This requires the
git-rev-list-args arguments to define the bundle contents.
verify <file>
Used to check that a bundle file is valid and will apply cleanly
to the current repository. This includes checks on the bundle
format itself as well as checking that the prerequisite commits
exist and are fully linked in the current repository. git bundle
prints a list of missing commits, if any, and exits with a
non-zero status.
list-heads <file>
Lists the references defined in the bundle. If followed by a
list of references, only references matching those given are
printed out.
unbundle <file>
Passes the objects in the bundle to git index-pack for storage
in the repository, then prints the names of all defined refer-
ences. If a list of references is given, only references match-
ing those in the list are printed. This command is really plumb-
ing, intended to be called only by git fetch.
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<git-rev-list-args>
A list of arguments, acceptable to git rev-parse and git
rev-list (and containg a named ref, see SPECIFYING REFERENCES
below), that specifies the specific objects and references to
transport. For example, master{tilde}10..master causes the cur-
rent master reference to be packaged along with all objects
added since its 10th ancestor commit. There is no explicit limit
to the number of references and objects that may be packaged.
[<refname>...]
A list of references used to limit the references reported as
available. This is principally of use to git fetch, which
expects to receive only those references asked for and not nec-
essarily everything in the pack (in this case, git bundle acts
like git fetch-pack).
SPECIFYING REFERENCES
git bundle will only package references that are shown by git show-ref:
this includes heads, tags, and remote heads. References such as mas-
ter{tilde}1 cannot be packaged, but are perfectly suitable for defining
the basis. More than one reference may be packaged, and more than one
basis can be specified. The objects packaged are those not contained in
the union of the given bases. Each basis can be specified explicitly
(e.g. ^master{tilde}10), or implicitly (e.g. master{tilde}10..master,
--since=10.days.ago master).
It is very important that the basis used be held by the destination. It
is okay to err on the side of caution, causing the bundle file to con-
tain objects already in the destination, as these are ignored when
unpacking at the destination.
EXAMPLE
Assume you want to transfer the history from a repository R1 on machine
A to another repository R2 on machine B. For whatever reason, direct
connection between A and B is not allowed, but we can move data from A
to B via some mechanism (CD, email, etc.). We want to update R2 with
development made on the branch master in R1.
To bootstrap the process, you can first create a bundle that does not
have any basis. You can use a tag to remember up to what commit you
last processed, in order to make it easy to later update the other
repository with an incremental bundle:
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machineA$ cd R1
machineA$ git bundle create file.bundle master
machineA$ git tag -f lastR2bundle master
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GIT-BUNDLE(1)GIT-BUNDLE(1)
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Then you transfer file.bundle to the target machine B. If you are cre-
ating the repository on machine B, then you can clone from the bundle
as if it were a remote repository instead of creating an empty reposi-
tory and then pulling or fetching objects from the bundle:
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machineB$ git clone /home/me/tmp/file.bundle R2
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This will define a remote called "origin" in the resulting repository
that lets you fetch and pull from the bundle. The $GIT_DIR/config file
in R2 will have an entry like this:
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[remote "origin"]
url = /home/me/tmp/file.bundle
fetch = refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
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To update the resulting mine.git repository, you can fetch or pull
after replacing the bundle stored at /home/me/tmp/file.bundle with
incremental updates.
After working some more in the original repository, you can create an
incremental bundle to update the other repository:
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machineA$ cd R1
machineA$ git bundle create file.bundle lastR2bundle..master
machineA$ git tag -f lastR2bundle master
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You then transfer the bundle to the other machine to replace
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/home/me/tmp/file.bundle, and pull from it.
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machineB$ cd R2
machineB$ git pull
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If you know up to what commit the intended recipient repository should
have the necessary objects, you can use that knowledge to specify the
basis, giving a cut-off point to limit the revisions and objects that
go in the resulting bundle. The previous example used the lastR2bundle
tag for this purpose, but you can use any other options that you would
give to the git-log(1) command. Here are more examples:
You can use a tag that is present in both:
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$ git bundle create mybundle v1.0.0..master
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You can use a basis based on time:
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$ git bundle create mybundle --since=10.days master
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You can use the number of commits:
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$ git bundle create mybundle -10 master
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You can run git-bundle verify to see if you can extract from a bundle
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that was created with a basis:
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$ git bundle verify mybundle
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This will list what commits you must have in order to extract from the
bundle and will error out if you do not have them.
A bundle from a recipient repository’s point of view is just like
a regular repository which it fetches or pulls from. You can, for exam-
ple, map references when fetching:
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$ git fetch mybundle master:localRef
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You can also see what references it offers:
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$ git ls-remote mybundle
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AUTHOR
Written by Mark Levedahl <mdl123@verizon.net: mailto:mdl123@veri-
zon.net>
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
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