A script to locally clone git repository and link them

I tend to keep al my git repository locally organized into the ~/git folder. That is nice and useful, at least to me, since I always have a fixed starting point. Many of such repositories have online shared counterparts, like Github or Gitlab, some of them will have, and some will never have.

Sometimes I need to bring a few repositories with me on a travel, on a different computer, and so on. USB stikcs and hard disk to the rescue! But USB sticks died (quite often), and when it happens I have to clone again the repository. That’s not to much work, but quite frankly I don’t like the git default naming scheme: origin is a bad name for me and I tend to provide more meaningful names following pretty much the following rules:
  • gitlab or github as default remote for a shared repository under my account;
  • upstream for a shared repository that is not mine (meaning dangerous zone!);
  • pc for a remote that points to my computer;
  • usb for a remote that points to and usb stick.

That means that once I need to clone out a repository I have to do all the remote renaming stuff (yes, that’s what defaults are for!), and moreover I’ve to do the backlinking of the remote into the original repository (if not existant**. Too much stuff for my fingers, let’s do a script to automate that.
Introducing local-git-clone.sh, that you can find here.
Let’s see how it works: you must pass a few arguments for the setup and the script will do the cloning and renaming stuff. Arguments are:
  • the local path to the original repository;
  • the name you want the origin be renamed to;
  • the name you want the new clone to be mentioned as remote in the original repository.
Let’s see it in action during all the phases, and let’s consider the pgenv repository that I keep a copy of.

Phase 1: initial cloning

% local-clone-git.sh ~/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv pc usb         
I will clone
/home/luca/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv
into local folder
/media/luca/FLUCA_PG/git
creating the remote ref
pc
into it and adding, if needed, the remote ref
usb
into the remote source repository.
Ok to proceed? (y/n)
y
Step 1: clone remote [/home/luca/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv] into /media/luca/FLUCA_PG/git ... 
Cloning into 'pgenv'...
done.
cloned into /media/luca/FLUCA_PG/git/pgenv
The idea is that of cloning the local pgenv repository onto the USB stick. First of all the program asks for confirmation, since the cloning could take a while. The the program issues a regular git clone command to start all the work.

Phase 2: Renaming the origin remote

This is quite simple: the script issue a git remote rename on the freshly cloned repository to assign it a different name.
Step 2: renaming the default origin remote for the new repository ... 
origin -> pc
The repository on my local machine will be seen as pc from the usb stick.

Phase 3: Cloning all the remotes

Now that the new repository is set-up on the usb stick, let’s clone the remotes (excluding the usb stick itself) from the original repository.
Step 3: cloning all the remotes from the original repository ...
Adding [github] -> [git@github.com:fluca1978/pgenv.git]
Adding [upstream] -> [git@github.com:theory/pgenv.git]
Now the usb stick repository has the very same remotes as the original one, so it is somehow a repository on its own on which I can work from.

Phase 4: Linking back the fresh repository

The original repository does not know anything about the new clone, so let’s add it:
Step 4: adding usb as remote to /home/luca/git/misc/PostgreSQL/pgenv ...
In the case the original repository has already a remote with the same name, this operation is skipped. Now I can fetch from either repository the changes of the other one.

Phase 5: Fetching all

Well, at this time, the clone is done. But sometimes I want to be able to switch to branches I’ve done only in certain repository even when working offline. So, let’s fetch all!
Step 5: fetching all ...
Fetching pc
Fetching github
remote: Enumerating objects: 4, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (4/4), done.
remote: Total 8 (delta 4), reused 4 (delta 4), pack-reused 4
Unpacking objects: 100% (8/8), done.
From github.com:fluca1978/pgenv
* [new branch]      auto_select_pl_languages -> github/auto_select_pl_languages
* [new branch]      availables-pg-versions   -> github/availables-pg-versions
* [new branch]      build-from-git           -> github/build-from-git
* [new branch]      cleanup_available        -> github/cleanup_available
* [new branch]      configuration            -> github/configuration
* [new branch]      configure_opts_cleanup   -> github/configure_opts_cleanup
* [new branch]      fix-pgenv-root           -> github/fix-pgenv-root
* [new branch]      fix-typos                -> github/fix-typos
* [new branch]      master                   -> github/master
* [new branch]      merges                   -> github/merges
* [new branch]      minor-changes            -> github/minor-changes
* [new branch]      multiple-versions        -> github/multiple-versions
* [new branch]      patching                 -> github/patching
* [new branch]      self-check               -> github/self-check
* [new branch]      stop-modes               -> github/stop-modes
* [new branch]      verbosity                -> github/verbosity
Fetching upstream
remote: Enumerating objects: 2, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (2/2), done.
remote: Total 4 (delta 2), reused 2 (delta 2), pack-reused 2
Unpacking objects: 100% (4/4), done.
From github.com:theory/pgenv
* [new branch]      master     -> upstream/master
All done! Enjoy the clone repository /media/luca/FLUCA_PG/git/pgenv !
And that’s all! Now the usb stick contains a perfect workable standalone repository configured the way I want! I hope this idea can be helpful for someone else.

The article A script to locally clone git repository and link them has been posted by Luca Ferrari on February 14, 2019