remote

Manage remote repositories.

When you clone something, it already has a remote called origin.

Remotes are short names that point to URLs. They are stored under .git/config as:

[remote "<remote-name>"]
  url = http://github.com/user/repo

There are also other remote related variables configurations that can be stored under [remote], in including fetch.

View remote

Shows remote repo aliases without their real addresses:

git remote

Shows remote repo aliases and their real addresses:

git remote -v

View detail of branch:

git remote show $B

remote add

One way to avoid typing the repo URL is giving it an alias with remote add:

git remote add origin git@github.com:userid/reponame.git

Origin can be any alias we want, but origin is a standard name for the main remote repo.

And now you can do:

git push origin master

You can view existing aliases with:

git remote -v

Which gives:

origin  git@github.com:cirosantilli/reponame.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:cirosantilli/reponame.git (push)

Modify remotes

Remove the remote branch called GitHub:

git remote rm github

Change the address of a remote:

git remote set-url git://github.com/username/projectname.git

prune

Remove all remote refs under under remotes/origin such that their remote it tracks has been deleted:

git remote prune origin

Useful after push --delete or when the remote was deleted via the web interface, e.g. after the pull request was merged.

Also possible with:

git fetch -p

The actual branches will still be there. Delete merged branches, i.e. any ancestor of the current branch, with:

git branch --merged | grep -v "\*" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6127328/how-can-i-delete-all-git-branches-which-have-been-merged

remote head

Is a head that has a name.

It is not a branch however!

If you checkout to them, you are in a detached head state.

view remote branches

First fetch the branches with:

git fetch remote

View only remote branches, not local ones:

git branch -r

View all branches, local and remote:

git branch -a

They are listed like remote/\<remote-name>/\<branch-name>

Where remote-name was either given:

• explicitly by remote add
• origin by default by clone

how to refer to one

Documentation at:

git rev-parse

SPECIFYING REVISIONS section.

Depends on the command.

The best way is explicitly <remote-name>/<branch-name> but some commands do explicit stuff if you enter just <branch-name> and there is no other branch in your repo with that name.

Ex: origin/master, origin/feature2, upstream/feature2, etc.

branch

Branch only sees remotes if you give the remote-name explicitly.

Checkout to a remote without specifying which remote

If you have a tracking branch origin/b, no other tracking branch of the form some-remote/b, and no branch named b:

git checkout b

is expanded to:

git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch>

which will create the local branch for you and make it track the right thing.

Note however that:

git checkout -b b

Is the same as:

git branch b
git checkout b

so it will create the branch b from the current commit.

This only works for the origin remote. For custom remotes you have to use the full form.