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Eric Bouchut edited this page Mar 19, 2016 · 25 revisions

Changing the URL of a remote

I recently cloned one of my github repository with hub using the wrong URL.

git clone ebouchut/pygments-css # <=> git clone git://github.com/ebouchut/pygments-css.git

I forgot to use hub's -p option to make a private (ie. read-write) copy.

git clone -p ebouchut/pygments-css # <=> git clone git@github.com:ebouchut/pygments-css.git

I therefore ended up with a read only remote using the git scheme (git://github.com/ebouchut/pygments-css.git) instead of the ssh one (git@github.com:ebouchut/pygments-css.git) which is read-write.

git remote -v
  origin	git://github.com/ebouchut/pygments-css.git (fetch)
  origin	git://github.com/ebouchut/pygments-css.git (push)

But I only figured it out when git refused to push because I was using the public git URL.

git push

  fatal: remote error:
    You can't push to git://github.com/ebouchut/pygments-css.git
    Use https://github.com/ebouchut/pygments-css.git

The fix consisted in changing the remote URL of the remote origin, like so:

git remote set-url origin git@github.com:ebouchut/pygments-css.git

I now have the correct read-write ssh remote URL.

git remote -v
  origin	git@github.com:ebouchut/pygments-css.git (fetch)
  origin	git@github.com:ebouchut/pygments-css.git (push)

In case you do not yet know hub and are using github daily, I encourage you to give it a try. I find it is a must have because it adds many useful git subcommands to create, clone (the command I used above), fork, browse a github repository, make github pull requests, push to multiple github remotes...

Pushing to 2 remotes (using git)

Say I clone a repository from github.

git clone git@github.com/ebouchut/learning-git.git

Every time I ask git to push to the remote origin, I want git to push to 2 repositories github (the one I cloned from) and bitbucket (which acts a secondary/backup git repository in this case).

Here is how to do this:

git remote set-url --add --push origin git@github.com/ebouchut/learning-git.git
git remote set-url --add --push origin git@bitbucket.org/ebouchut/learning-git.git

This adds 2 push URLs remote.origin.pushurl:

  • the first one for github: git@github.com:ebouchut/learning-git.git
  • the second one for bitbucket: ssh://git@bitbucket.org/ebouchut/learning-git.git.

Adding a remote.origin.pushurl overrides the default remote.origin.url for the push action.

git config  --local --get-regex remote.origin.\*
  remote.origin.url git@github.com:ebouchut/learning-git.git
  remote.origin.fetch +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
  remote.origin.pushurl git@github.com:ebouchut/learning-git.git
  remote.origin.pushurl ssh://git@bitbucket.org/ebouchut/learning-git.git

From now using git push will push both to github and bitbucket. Now here is what happens when I do a git push. I ask git to be a bit verbose (using -v) so that it mentions where it is pushing to.

git push -v
  Pushing to git@github.com:ebouchut/learning-git.git
    To git@github.com:ebouchut/learning-git.git
    = [up to date]      master -> master
    updating local tracking ref 'refs/remotes/origin/master'
    Everything up-to-date
  Pushing to ssh://git@bitbucket.org/ebouchut/learning-git.git
    To ssh://git@bitbucket.org/ebouchut/learning-git.git
    = [up to date]      master -> master
    updating local tracking ref 'refs/remotes/origin/master'
    Everything up-to-date

Source

Pushing to 2 remotes using hub

First of make a private clone of your github repository.

git clone -p ebouchut/learning-git

You now have a remote named origin pointing to your repository on github.

git remote -v 
  origin	git@github.com:ebouchut/learning-git.git (fetch)
  origin	git@github.com:ebouchut/learning-git.git (push)

Then, add the other remote (bitbucket) in this case.

git remote add bitbucket ssh://git@bitbucket.org/ebouchut/learning-git.git

From now on, you can fetch and pull from the two repositories in one go like so:

git fetch origin,bitbucket
#...
# Hackety hack...
# Commit
#...
git pull origin,bitbucket

Please note there is no space in between the name of the repositories and the comma.

Download a snapshot of a git repository

What I mean by that is getting the files without the .git repository.

Gitlab

Assuming your project is hosted on a Gitlab git.example.com.

mkdir project
cd project
git archive --remote=ssh://git@git.example.com/username/project.git HEAD  | tar xvf -

Bitbucket

mkdir project
cd project
git archive --remote=ssh://git@git.bitbucket.com/username/project.git HEAD  | tar xvf -

If you want to get a single file instead of all the files of the repository, add the file path relative to the repository home. To get a single file from the root directory of the project:

git archive --remote=ssh://git@git.bitbucket.com/username/project.git HEAD  file | tar xvf -

Github

Ulinke Bitbuket, GitHub does not support remote git-archive, but you have 2 options:

  • A dedicated HTTP endpoint to retrieve an archive of the project
curl -O https://github.com/username/project/archive/master.tar.gz
  • svn export
svn export https://github.com/username/project/trunk project

Source:

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