Setting repo remotes with the “track” command

This is useful if you want to avoid sending a lot of objects when performing git push and want to copy those objects from another local repository first.

Subcommand	Summary
`set your-repo-path orig-repo-path remote-name [--tags]`	Runs `git remote add [--tags]`
`fetch your-repo-path remote-name`	Perform `git fetch --prune`
`rm your-repo-path remote-name`	Perform `git remote remove`
`list** your-repo-path`	List remotes configured in your repository

Note

It is almost never useful to track torvalds/linux.git, as our use of git alternates will already make sure that you don’t have to push objects already present in torvalds/linux.git. This command is useful for objects that have not yet found their way into Linus’s repo (e.g. those from linux-next).

Examples

All examples are for linux-next, since that’s likely to be what most people want.

Setting

Set up linux-next as a remote for your own repository:

ssh git@gitolite.kernel.org track set \
    pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mricon/linux \    # <-- Your repository path
    pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next \ # <-- The repository you want
    linux-next [--tags]                        # <-- remote name (pass --tags if you want tags)

This will do the following:

cd $REPOS/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mricon/linux.git
git remote add --no-tags linux-next $REPOS/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git
git fetch linux-next --prune

If you passed --tags at the end of the command, then --no-tags will be omitted and you’ll get all the tags from the remote repository as well.

Fetching

Right before you do git push, run the following command to fetch the latest objects from linux-next and thus avoid pushing them over your ssh connection during your own git push:

ssh git@gitolite.kernel.org track fetch \
    pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mricon/linux \ # <-- Your repository path
    linux-next                              # <-- Remote name you want to fetch

This will do the following:

cd $REPOS/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mricon/linux.git
git fetch linux-next --prune

Listing

Forgot which remotes you already set up?

ssh git@gitolite.kernel.org track list \
    pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mricon/linux # <-- Your repository path

Removing

Done with a remote? You can just leave it there, or remove it entirely:

ssh git@gitolite.kernel.org track rm \
    pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mricon/linux \ # <-- Your repository path
    linux-next                              # <-- Remote name you want to remove

This will do the following:

cd $REPOS/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mricon/linux.git
git remote remove linux-next