Bundles

Remarks#

The key to making this work is to begin by cloning a bundle that starts from the beginning of the repo history:

 git bundle create initial.bundle master
 git tag -f some_previous_tag master  # so the whole repo does not have to go each time

getting that initial bundle to the remote machine; and

 git clone -b master initial.bundle remote_repo_name

Creating a git bundle on the local machine and using it on another

Sometimes you may want maintain versions of a git repository on machines that have no network connection. Bundles allow you to package git objects and references in a repository on one machine and import those into a repository on another.

git tag 2016_07_24
git bundle create changes_between_tags.bundle [some_previous_tag]..2016_07_24

Somehow transfer the changes_between_tags.bundle file to the remote machine; e.g., via thumb drive. Once you have it there:

git bundle verify changes_between_tags.bundle  # make sure bundle arrived intact
git checkout [some branch]       # in the repo on the remote machine
git bundle list-heads changes_between_tags.bundle # list the references in the bundle
git pull changes_between_tags.bundle [reference from the bundle, e.g. last field from the previous output]

The reverse is also possible. Once you’ve made changes on the remote repository you can bundle up the deltas; put the changes on, e.g., a thumb drive, and merge them back into the local repository so the two can stay in sync without requiring direct git, ssh, rsync, or http protocol access between the machines.