I can't see what 'git remote add' does.
'git clone' does several operations on your behalf:
- It creates an empty local repository.
- It adds a remote repository, called 'origin' by default.
- It fetches the objects (files, directories, commits, etc.) and references[1] (branches, tags, etc.) from the origin repository. By default it fetches all the objects and references of the remote repository.
- It creates a local branch called 'master' from the remote head 'HEAD' branch
- It checks out the master branch to the working directory.
Plus a few other details that are not relevant in this discussion.
[1] In git a reference is a 'pointer' to a commit object (to any commit object in the whole repository history), and a head is a reference for the last commit of a given commit tree. A branch is a head and all the commits leading to that head (i.e., the head history).
If you want to work with branches from different remote repositories in your local repository, you can't use 'git clone' for this (as it creates a new local repository in step 1., which you don't want). So you need to perform some or all of the steps yourself.
That's where 'git remote' comes into play. 'git remote' allows you to perform steps 2 and 3 and select wich references you want to fetch in step 3, and then 'git branch'/'git checkout' allow you to perform steps 4 and 5.
Then you can work on your local branches. When you want to push your local branches to a remote repository, you first need to tell git what to push there (which local branches) and where to (into what remote branches). And you use 'git config' for that.
I know this is going to be a bit longwinded (it already is 
), but I'll show all the commands to setup the whole thing and the regular workflow (I'll be rather terse, the full details are on the paper mentionned before .
Some names:
- devel-1: the first developer
- devel-2: the second developer
- shared-repo: the name of the shared repository directory
Some assuptions:
- Linux/Unix environment
- All the repositories are on the same machine (if not, only need to change git transports from git:// to git+ssh://, etc.)
Devel-1 local repo:
Create & config:
cd /path/to/devel-1/dir
mkdir devel-1.git
cd devel-1.git
git init
git config --global user.name 'Devel-1 Real Name'
git config --global user.email 'devel-1@email.address'
git config --global i18n.commitEncoding 'utf8'
git config --global i18n.logOutputEncoding 'utf8'
Get branches from git.moodle.org repo:
git remote add -t cvshead -t MOODLE_19_STABLE -t MOODLE_18_STABLE -m cvshead moodleorg git://git.moodle.org/moodle.git
git fetch moodleorg
Create local (work) branches:
git branch --track cvshead-devel-1 moodleorg/cvshead
git branch --track mdl19-devel-1 moodleorg/MOODLE_19_STABLE
git branch --track mdl18-devel-1 moodleorg/MOODLE_18_STABLE
Shared repo:
Create & config:
cd /path/to/shared-repo/dir
mkdir shared-repo.git
cd shared-repo.git
git --bare init --shared=all
chmod g=rwxs,o=rx . # Give appropiate permissions to users in
sudo chgrp -R git-moodle . # group 'git-moodle'.
Populate shared repo from local devel-1 repo:
cd /path/to/devel-1/dir/devel-1.git
git remote add shared-repo /path/to/shared-repo/dir/shared-repo.git
git push shared-repo +cvshead-devel-1: +mdl19-devel-1: +mdl18-devel-1:
Devel-1 local repo:
Configure local branches to merge the right remote branch when pulling:
We need to do this only for the first developer, as the shared repo didn't exist when we created the branches.
cd /path/to/devel-1/dir/devel-1.git
git config branch.cvshead-devel-1.remote shared-repo
git config branch.cvshead-devel-1.merge refs/heads/cvshead-devel-1
git config branch.mdl19-devel-1.remote shared-repo
git config branch.mdl19-devel-1.merge refs/heads/mdl19-devel-1
git config branch.mdl18-devel-1.remote shared-repo
git config branch.mdl18-devel-1.merge refs/heads/mdl18-devel-1
Devel-2 local repo:
Create & config:
cd /path/to/devel-2/dir
git clone -o shared-repo /path/to/shared-repo/dir/shared-repo.git devel-2.git
cd devel-2.git
git config --global user.name 'Devel-2 Real Name'
git config --global user.email 'devel-2@email.address'
git config --global i18n.commitEncoding 'utf8'
git config --global i18n.logOutputEncoding 'utf8'
Get branches from git.moodle.org repo:
cd devel-2.git
git remote add -t cvshead -t MOODLE_19_STABLE -t MOODLE_18_STABLE -m cvshead moodleorg git://git.moodle.org/moodle.git
git fetch moodleorg
Create local (work) branches:
From moodle.org:
git branch --track cvshead-devel-2 moodleorg/cvshead
git branch --track mdl19-devel-2 moodleorg/MOODLE_19_STABLE
git branch --track mdl18-devel-2 moodleorg/MOODLE_18_STABLE
From the shared-repo:
git branch --track cvshead-devel-1 shared-repo/cvshead-devel-1
git branch --track mdl19-devel-1 shared-repo/mdl19-devel-1
git branch --track mdl18-devel-1 shared-repo/mdl18-devel-1
Configure local branches to merge the right remote branch when pulling:
Nothing to do.
Now you can pull and push from any of the configured remote repositories (git.moodle.org and your shared local repo) by specifiying the remote repository name when using 'git pull' or 'git push'
Clear as mud, isn't it
If I can find a couple of hours, I'll dump all this into the Moodle Docs and add some useful comments around the commands.
Saludos.
Iñaki.
