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

NAME
       git-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
       references 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 repository.
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 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.
       <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).
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
       master~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~10), or implicitly (e.g. master~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
       contain 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:
           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
       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:
           $ git bundle create mybundle v1.0.0..master

       You can use a basis 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 basis:
           $ 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

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 1.8.3.1                       07/30/2024                     GIT-BUNDLE(1)