git-bundle(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | BUNDLE FORMAT | OPTIONS | SPECIFYING REFERENCES | OBJECT PREREQUISITES | EXAMPLES | FILE FORMAT | GIT | COLOPHON

GIT-BUNDLE(1)                  Git Manual                  GIT-BUNDLE(1)

NAME         top

       git-bundle - Move objects and refs by archive

SYNOPSIS         top

       git bundle create [-q | --quiet | --progress]
                           [--version=<version>] <file> <git-rev-list-args>
       git bundle verify [-q | --quiet] <file>
       git bundle list-heads <file> [<refname>...]
       git bundle unbundle [--progress] <file> [<refname>...]

DESCRIPTION         top

       Create, unpack, and manipulate "bundle" files. Bundles are used
       for the "offline" transfer of Git objects without an active
       "server" sitting on the other side of the network connection.

       They can be used to create both incremental and full backups of a
       repository, and to relay the state of the references in one
       repository to another.

       Git commands that fetch or otherwise "read" via protocols such as
       ssh:// and https:// can also operate on bundle files. It is
       possible git-clone(1) a new repository from a bundle, to use
       git-fetch(1) to fetch from one, and to list the references
       contained within it with git-ls-remote(1). There’s no
       corresponding "write" support, i.e.a git push into a bundle is
       not supported.

       See the "EXAMPLES" section below for examples of how to use
       bundles.

BUNDLE FORMAT         top

       Bundles are .pack files (see git-pack-objects(1)) with a header
       indicating what references are contained within the bundle.

       Like the packed archive format itself bundles can either be
       self-contained, or be created using exclusions. See the "OBJECT
       PREREQUISITES" section below.

       Bundles created using revision exclusions are "thin packs"
       created using the --thin option to git-pack-objects(1), and
       unbundled using the --fix-thin option to git-index-pack(1).

       There is no option to create a "thick pack" when using revision
       exclusions, and users should not be concerned about the
       difference. By using "thin packs", bundles created using
       exclusions are smaller in size. That they’re "thin" under the
       hood is merely noted here as a curiosity, and as a reference to
       other documentation.

       See gitformat-bundle(5) for more details and the discussion of
       "thin pack" in gitformat-pack(5) for further details.

OPTIONS         top

       create [options] <file> <git-rev-list-args>
           Used to create a bundle named file. This requires the
           <git-rev-list-args> arguments to define the bundle contents.
           options contains the options specific to the git bundle
           create subcommand. If file is -, the bundle is written to
           stdout.

       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. Then, git bundle prints a list of missing
           commits, if any. Finally, information about additional
           capabilities, such as "object filter", is printed. See
           "Capabilities" in gitformat-bundle(5) for more information.
           The exit code is zero for success, but will be nonzero if the
           bundle file is invalid. If file is -, the bundle is read from
           stdin.

       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. If file is -, the bundle is read from stdin.

       unbundle <file>
           Passes the objects in the bundle to git index-pack for
           storage in the repository, then prints the names of all
           defined references. If a list of references is given, only
           references matching those in the list are printed. This
           command is really plumbing, intended to be called only by git
           fetch. If file is -, the bundle is read from stdin.

       <git-rev-list-args>
           A list of arguments, acceptable to git rev-parse and git
           rev-list (and containing a named ref, see SPECIFYING
           REFERENCES below), that specifies the specific objects and
           references to transport. For example, master~10..master
           causes the current 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
           necessarily everything in the pack (in this case, git bundle
           acts like git fetch-pack).

       --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.

       --version=<version>
           Specify the bundle version. Version 2 is the older format and
           can only be used with SHA-1 repositories; the newer version 3
           contains capabilities that permit extensions. The default is
           the oldest supported format, based on the hash algorithm in
           use.

       -q, --quiet
           This flag makes the command not to report its progress on the
           standard error stream.

SPECIFYING REFERENCES         top

       Revisions must be accompanied by reference names to be packaged
       in a bundle.

       More than one reference may be packaged, and more than one set of
       prerequisite objects can be specified. The objects packaged are
       those not contained in the union of the prerequisites.

       The git bundle create command resolves the reference names for
       you using the same rules as git rev-parse --abbrev-ref=loose.
       Each prerequisite can be specified explicitly (e.g. ^master~10),
       or implicitly (e.g. master~10..master, --since=10.days.ago
       master).

       All of these simple cases are OK (assuming we have a "master" and
       "next" branch):

           $ git bundle create master.bundle master
           $ echo master | git bundle create master.bundle --stdin
           $ git bundle create master-and-next.bundle master next
           $ (echo master; echo next) | git bundle create master-and-next.bundle --stdin

       And so are these (and the same but omitted --stdin examples):

           $ git bundle create recent-master.bundle master~10..master
           $ git bundle create recent-updates.bundle master~10..master next~5..next

       A revision name or a range whose right-hand-side cannot be
       resolved to a reference is not accepted:

           $ git bundle create HEAD.bundle $(git rev-parse HEAD)
           fatal: Refusing to create empty bundle.
           $ git bundle create master-yesterday.bundle master~10..master~5
           fatal: Refusing to create empty bundle.

OBJECT PREREQUISITES         top

       When creating bundles it is possible to create a self-contained
       bundle that can be unbundled in a repository with no common
       history, as well as providing negative revisions to exclude
       objects needed in the earlier parts of the history.

       Feeding a revision such as new to git bundle create will create a
       bundle file that contains all the objects reachable from the
       revision new. That bundle can be unbundled in any repository to
       obtain a full history that leads to the revision new:

           $ git bundle create full.bundle new

       A revision range such as old..new will produce a bundle file that
       will require the revision old (and any objects reachable from it)
       to exist for the bundle to be "unbundle"-able:

           $ git bundle create full.bundle old..new

       A self-contained bundle without any prerequisites can be
       extracted into anywhere, even into an empty repository, or be
       cloned from (i.e., new, but not old..new).

       It is okay to err on the side of caution, causing the bundle file
       to contain objects already in the destination, as these are
       ignored when unpacking at the destination.

       If you want to match git clone --mirror, which would include your
       refs such as refs/remotes/*, use --all. If you want to provide
       the same set of refs that a clone directly from the source
       repository would get, use --branches --tags for the
       <git-rev-list-args>.

       The git bundle verify command can be used to check whether your
       recipient repository has the required prerequisite commits for a
       bundle.

EXAMPLES         top

       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 prerequisites. 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:

           machineA$ cd R1
           machineA$ git bundle create file.bundle master
           machineA$ git tag -f lastR2bundle master

       Then you transfer file.bundle to the target machine B. Because
       this bundle does not require any existing object to be extracted,
       you can create a new repository on machine B by cloning from it:

           machineB$ git clone -b master /home/me/tmp/file.bundle R2

       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:

           [remote "origin"]
               url = /home/me/tmp/file.bundle
               fetch = refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

       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:

           machineA$ cd R1
           machineA$ git bundle create file.bundle lastR2bundle..master
           machineA$ git tag -f lastR2bundle master

       You then transfer the bundle to the other machine to replace
       /home/me/tmp/file.bundle, and pull from it.

           machineB$ cd R2
           machineB$ git pull

       If you know up to what commit the intended recipient repository
       should have the necessary objects, you can use that knowledge to
       specify the prerequisites, 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:

           $ git bundle create mybundle v1.0.0..master

       You can use a prerequisite based on time:

           $ git bundle create mybundle --since=10.days master

       You can use the number of commits:

           $ git bundle create mybundle -10 master

       You can run git-bundle verify to see if you can extract from a
       bundle that was created with a prerequisite:

           $ git bundle verify mybundle

       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
       example, map references when fetching:

           $ git fetch mybundle master:localRef

       You can also see what references it offers:

           $ git ls-remote mybundle

FILE FORMAT         top

       See gitformat-bundle(5).

GIT         top

       Part of the git(1) suite

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
       system) project.  Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual
       page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2023-12-20.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Git 2.43.0.174.g055bb6         2023-12-20                  GIT-BUNDLE(1)

Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-source(1)git(1)git-clone(1)git-fast-export(1)git-fetch(1)git-pack-objects(1)git-pull(1)git-push(1)gitformat-bundle(5)gitprotocol-v2(5)