GIT-FETCH(1)                      Git Manual                      GIT-FETCH(1)



NAME
       git-fetch - Download objects and refs from another repository

SYNOPSIS
       git fetch [<options>] [<repository> [<refspec>...]]
       git fetch [<options>] <group>
       git fetch --multiple [<options>] [(<repository> | <group>)...]
       git fetch --all [<options>]


DESCRIPTION
       Fetch branches and/or tags (collectively, "refs") from one or more
       other repositories, along with the objects necessary to complete their
       histories. Remote-tracking branches are updated (see the description of
       <refspec> below for ways to control this behavior).

       By default, any tag that points into the histories being fetched is
       also fetched; the effect is to fetch tags that point at branches that
       you are interested in. This default behavior can be changed by using
       the --tags or --no-tags options or by configuring remote.<name>.tagopt.
       By using a refspec that fetches tags explicitly, you can fetch tags
       that do not point into branches you are interested in as well.

       git fetch can fetch from either a single named repository or URL, or
       from several repositories at once if <group> is given and there is a
       remotes.<group> entry in the configuration file. (See git-config(1)).

       When no remote is specified, by default the origin remote will be used,
       unless there's an upstream branch configured for the current branch.

       The names of refs that are fetched, together with the object names they
       point at, are written to .git/FETCH_HEAD. This information may be used
       by scripts or other git commands, such as git-pull(1).

OPTIONS
       --all
           Fetch all remotes.

       -a, --append
           Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the existing
           contents of .git/FETCH_HEAD. Without this option old data in
           .git/FETCH_HEAD will be overwritten.

       --depth=<depth>
           Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository created by
           git clone with --depth=<depth> option (see git-clone(1)) to the
           specified number of commits from the tip of each remote branch
           history. Tags for the deepened commits are not fetched.

       --unshallow
           If the source repository is complete, convert a shallow repository
           to a complete one, removing all the limitations imposed by shallow
           repositories.

           If the source repository is shallow, fetch as much as possible so
           that the current repository has the same history as the source
           repository.

       --update-shallow
           By default when fetching from a shallow repository, git fetch
           refuses refs that require updating .git/shallow. This option
           updates .git/shallow and accept such refs.

       --dry-run
           Show what would be done, without making any changes.

       -f, --force
           When git fetch is used with <rbranch>:<lbranch> refspec, it refuses
           to update the local branch <lbranch> unless the remote branch
           <rbranch> it fetches is a descendant of <lbranch>. This option
           overrides that check.

       -k, --keep
           Keep downloaded pack.

       --multiple
           Allow several <repository> and <group> arguments to be specified.
           No <refspec>s may be specified.

       -p, --prune
           After fetching, remove any remote-tracking references that no
           longer exist on the remote. Tags are not subject to pruning if they
           are fetched only because of the default tag auto-following or due
           to a --tags option. However, if tags are fetched due to an explicit
           refspec (either on the command line or in the remote configuration,
           for example if the remote was cloned with the --mirror option),
           then they are also subject to pruning.

       -n, --no-tags
           By default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded from the
           remote repository are fetched and stored locally. This option
           disables this automatic tag following. The default behavior for a
           remote may be specified with the remote.<name>.tagopt setting. See
           git-config(1).

       --refmap=<refspec>
           When fetching refs listed on the command line, use the specified
           refspec (can be given more than once) to map the refs to
           remote-tracking branches, instead of the values of remote.*.fetch
           configuration variables for the remote repository. See section on
           "Configured Remote-tracking Branches" for details.

       -t, --tags
           Fetch all tags from the remote (i.e., fetch remote tags refs/tags/*
           into local tags with the same name), in addition to whatever else
           would otherwise be fetched. Using this option alone does not
           subject tags to pruning, even if --prune is used (though tags may
           be pruned anyway if they are also the destination of an explicit
           refspec; see --prune).

       --recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]
           This option controls if and under what conditions new commits of
           populated submodules should be fetched too. It can be used as a
           boolean option to completely disable recursion when set to no or to
           unconditionally recurse into all populated submodules when set to
           yes, which is the default when this option is used without any
           value. Use on-demand to only recurse into a populated submodule
           when the superproject retrieves a commit that updates the
           submodule's reference to a commit that isn't already in the local
           submodule clone.

       --no-recurse-submodules
           Disable recursive fetching of submodules (this has the same effect
           as using the --recurse-submodules=no option).

       --submodule-prefix=<path>
           Prepend <path> to paths printed in informative messages such as
           "Fetching submodule foo". This option is used internally when
           recursing over submodules.

       --recurse-submodules-default=[yes|on-demand]
           This option is used internally to temporarily provide a
           non-negative default value for the --recurse-submodules option. All
           other methods of configuring fetch's submodule recursion (such as
           settings in gitmodules(5) and git-config(1)) override this option,
           as does specifying --[no-]recurse-submodules directly.

       -u, --update-head-ok
           By default git fetch refuses to update the head which corresponds
           to the current branch. This flag disables the check. This is purely
           for the internal use for git pull to communicate with git fetch,
           and unless you are implementing your own Porcelain you are not
           supposed to use it.

       --upload-pack <upload-pack>
           When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by git
           fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the command to
           specify non-default path for the command run on the other end.

       -q, --quiet
           Pass --quiet to git-fetch-pack and silence any other internally
           used git commands. Progress is not reported to the standard error
           stream.

       -v, --verbose
           Be verbose.

       --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.

       <repository>
           The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch or pull
           operation. This parameter can be either a URL (see the section GIT
           URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES
           below).

       <group>
           A name referring to a list of repositories as the value of
           remotes.<group> in the configuration file. (See git-config(1)).

       <refspec>
           Specifies which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. When
           no <refspec>s appear on the command line, the refs to fetch are
           read from remote.<repository>.fetch variables instead (see
           CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES below).

           The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +, followed
           by the source ref <src>, followed by a colon :, followed by the
           destination ref <dst>. The colon can be omitted when <dst> is
           empty.

           tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>; it
           requests fetching everything up to the given tag.

           The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is not
           empty string, the local ref that matches it is fast-forwarded using
           <src>. If the optional plus + is used, the local ref is updated
           even if it does not result in a fast-forward update.

               Note
               When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be rewound
               and rebased regularly, it is expected that its new tip will not
               be descendant of its previous tip (as stored in your
               remote-tracking branch the last time you fetched). You would
               want to use the + sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates
               will be needed for such branches. There is no way to determine
               or declare that a branch will be made available in a repository
               with this behavior; the pulling user simply must know this is
               the expected usage pattern for a branch.

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 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 native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and
       should be used with caution on unsecured networks.

       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/

       This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first
       colon. This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For
       example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path
       or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.

       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/

       These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the
       former implies --local option. See git-clone(1) for details.

       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:

       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 gitremote-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.

REMOTES
       The name of one of the following can be used instead of a URL as
       <repository> argument:

       o   a remote in the Git configuration file: $GIT_DIR/config,

       o   a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory, or

       o   a file in the $GIT_DIR/branches directory.

       All of these also allow you to omit the refspec from the command line
       because they each contain a refspec which git will use by default.

   Named remote in configuration file
       You can choose to provide the name of a remote which you had previously
       configured using git-remote(1), git-config(1) or even by a manual edit
       to the $GIT_DIR/config file. The URL of this remote will be used to
       access the repository. The refspec of this remote will be used by
       default when you do not provide a refspec on the command line. The
       entry in the config file would appear like this:

                   [remote "<name>"]
                           url = <url>
                           pushurl = <pushurl>
                           push = <refspec>
                           fetch = <refspec>


       The <pushurl> is used for pushes only. It is optional and defaults to
       <url>.

   Named file in $GIT_DIR/remotes
       You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes. The
       URL in this file will be used to access the repository. The refspec in
       this file will be used as default when you do not provide a refspec on
       the command line. This file should have the following format:

                   URL: one of the above URL format
                   Push: <refspec>
                   Pull: <refspec>


       Push: lines are used by git push and Pull: lines are used by git pull
       and git fetch. Multiple Push: and Pull: lines may be specified for
       additional branch mappings.

   Named file in $GIT_DIR/branches
       You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches. The
       URL in this file will be used to access the repository. This file
       should have the following format:

                   <url>#<head>


       <url> is required; #<head> is optional.

       Depending on the operation, git will use one of the following refspecs,
       if you don't provide one on the command line. <branch> is the name of
       this file in $GIT_DIR/branches and <head> defaults to master.

       git fetch uses:

                   refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>


       git push uses:

                   HEAD:refs/heads/<head>


CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES
       You often interact with the same remote repository by regularly and
       repeatedly fetching from it. In order to keep track of the progress of
       such a remote repository, git fetch allows you to configure
       remote.<repository>.fetch configuration variables.

       Typically such a variable may look like this:

           [remote "origin"]
                   fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*


       This configuration is used in two ways:

       o   When git fetch is run without specifying what branches and/or tags
           to fetch on the command line, e.g.  git fetch origin or git fetch,
           remote.<repository>.fetch values are used as the refspecs---they
           specify which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. The
           example above will fetch all branches that exist in the origin
           (i.e. any ref that matches the left-hand side of the value,
           refs/heads/*) and update the corresponding remote-tracking branches
           in the refs/remotes/origin/* hierarchy.

       o   When git fetch is run with explicit branches and/or tags to fetch
           on the command line, e.g.  git fetch origin master, the <refspec>s
           given on the command line determine what are to be fetched (e.g.
           master in the example, which is a short-hand for master:, which in
           turn means "fetch the master branch but I do not explicitly say
           what remote-tracking branch to update with it from the command
           line"), and the example command will fetch only the master branch.
           The remote.<repository>.fetch values determine which
           remote-tracking branch, if any, is updated. When used in this way,
           the remote.<repository>.fetch values do not have any effect in
           deciding what gets fetched (i.e. the values are not used as
           refspecs when the command-line lists refspecs); they are only used
           to decide where the refs that are fetched are stored by acting as a
           mapping.

       The latter use of the remote.<repository>.fetch values can be
       overridden by giving the --refmap=<refspec> parameter(s) on the command
       line.

EXAMPLES
       o   Update the remote-tracking branches:

               $ git fetch origin

           The above command copies all branches from the remote refs/heads/
           namespace and stores them to the local refs/remotes/origin/
           namespace, unless the branch.<name>.fetch option is used to specify
           a non-default refspec.

       o   Using refspecs explicitly:

               $ git fetch origin +pu:pu maint:tmp

           This updates (or creates, as necessary) branches pu and tmp in the
           local repository by fetching from the branches (respectively) pu
           and maint from the remote repository.

           The pu branch will be updated even if it is does not fast-forward,
           because it is prefixed with a plus sign; tmp will not be.

       o   Peek at a remote's branch, without configuring the remote in your
           local repository:

               $ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git maint
               $ git log FETCH_HEAD

           The first command fetches the maint branch from the repository at
           git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git and the second command
           uses FETCH_HEAD to examine the branch with git-log(1). The fetched
           objects will eventually be removed by git's built-in housekeeping
           (see git-gc(1)).

BUGS
       Using --recurse-submodules can only fetch new commits in already
       checked out submodules right now. When e.g. upstream added a new
       submodule in the just fetched commits of the superproject the submodule
       itself can not be fetched, making it impossible to check out that
       submodule later without having to do a fetch again. This is expected to
       be fixed in a future Git version.

SEE ALSO
       git-pull(1)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite



Git 2.1.4                         03/19/2016                      GIT-FETCH(1)
