Rename master branch for both local and remote Git repositories

Question

I have the branch master which tracks the remote branch origin master   I want to rename them to master-old both locally and on the remote  Is this possible    For other users who tracked origin master  and who always updated their local master branch via git pull   what would happen after I renamed the remote branch  Would their git pull still work or would it throw an error that it couldn t find origin master anymore   Then  further on  I want to create a new master branch  both locally and remote   Again  after I did this  what would happen now if the other users do git pull   I guess all this would result in a lot of trouble  Is there a clean way to get what I want  Or should I just leave master as it is and create a new branch master-new and just work there further on

User · Answer

I believe the key is the realization that you are performing a double rename: master to master-old and also master-new to master.

From all the other answers I have synthesized this:

doublerename master-new master master-old

where we first have to define the doublerename Bash function:

# doublerename NEW CURRENT OLD
#   - arguments are branch names
#   - see COMMIT_MESSAGE below
#   - the result is pushed to origin, with upstream tracking info updated
doublerename() {
  local NEW=$1
  local CUR=$2
  local OLD=$3
  local COMMIT_MESSAGE="Double rename: $NEW -> $CUR -> $OLD.

This commit replaces the contents of '$CUR' with the contents of '$NEW'.
The old contents of '$CUR' now lives in '$OLD'.
The name '$NEW' will be deleted.

This way the public history of '$CUR' is not rewritten and clients do not have
to perform a Rebase Recovery.
"

  git branch --move $CUR $OLD
  git branch --move $NEW $CUR

  git checkout $CUR
  git merge -s ours $OLD -m $COMMIT_MESSAGE

  git push --set-upstream --atomic origin $OLD $CUR :$NEW
}

This is similar to a history-changing git rebase in that the branch contents is quite different, but it differs in that the clients can still safely fast-forward with git pull master.

User · Answer

The closest thing to renaming is deleting and then re-creating on the remote  For example   git branch -m master master-old git push remote  master           delete master git push remote master-old        create master-old on remote  git checkout -b master some-ref   create a new local master git push remote master            create master on remote   However this has a lot of caveats  First  no existing checkouts will know about the rename - git does not attempt to track branch renames  If the new master doesn t exist yet  git pull will error out  If the new master has been created  the pull will attempt to merge master and master-old  So it s generally a bad idea unless you have the cooperation of everyone who has checked out the repository previously   Note  Newer versions of git will not allow you to delete the master branch remotely by default  You can override this by setting the receive denyDeleteCurrent configuration value to warn or ignore on the remote repository  Otherwise  if you re ready to create a new master right away  skip the git push remote  master step  and pass --force to the git push remote master step  Note that if you re not able to change the remote s configuration  you won t be able to completely delete the master branch   This caveat only applies to the current branch  usually the master branch   any other branch can be deleted and recreated as above

User · Answer

This is the simplest and most  readable  way I know of    Move  local branch using -m  git branch -m my old branch name my new branch name   Push the  moved  branch to the remote  set  upstream  using -u   git push origin -u my new branch name    setting  upstream  essentially  connects  your local branch to the remote  so that things like fetch  pull and push will work   Delete the old branch from the remote  git push origin -D  lt old name gt     your local branch is already gone  because you  moved  it in the 1st step

User · Answer

There are many ways to rename the branch  but I am going to focus on the bigger problem   how to allow clients to fast-forward and not have to mess with their branches locally    First a quick picture    This is something actually easy to do  but don t abuse it  The whole idea hinges on merge commits  as they allow fast-forward  and link histories of a branch with another   renaming the branch     rename the branch  master  to  master-old    this works even if you are on branch  master  git branch -m master master-old   creating the new  master  branch     create master from new starting point git branch master  lt new-master-start-point gt    creating a merge commit to have a parent-child history     now we ve got to fix the new branch    git checkout master        by doing a merge commit that obsoletes    master-old  hence the  ours  strategy  git merge -s ours master-old   and voila   git push origin master   This works because creating a merge commit allows fast-forwarding the branch to a new revision   using a sensible merge commit message   renamed branch  master  to  master-old  and use commit ba2f9cc as new  master  -- this is done by doing a merge commit with  ours  strategy which obsoletes    the branch   these are the steps I did   git branch -m master master-old git branch master ba2f9cc git checkout master git merge -s ours master-old

User · Answer

What about   git checkout old-branch-name git push remote-name new-branch-name git push remote-name  old-branch-name git branch -m new-branch-name

User · Answer

git checkout -b new-branch-name git push remote-name new-branch-name  old-branch-name   You may have to manually switch to new-branch-name before deleting old-branch-name

User · Answer

The following can be saved to the shell script to do the job   For example   remote  origin   if        -eq 0     if there are no arguments  just quit then     echo  Usage   0 oldName newName or  0 newName   gt  amp 2     exit 1 elif            -eq 1     if only one argument is given  rename current branch then      oldBranchName    git branch   grep      cut -d     -f2    save current branch name     newBranchName  1 else     oldBranchName  1     newBranchName  2 fi  git branch -m  oldBranchName  newBranchName  git push  remote   oldBranchName  delete old branch on remote git push --set-upstream  remote  newBranchName   add new branch name on remote and track it   Please note that here default remote name  origin  is hard-coded  you can extend the script to make if configurable   Then this script can be used with bash aliases  git aliases or in  for example  sourcetree custom actions

User · Answer

Assuming you are currently on master   git push origin master master-old          1 git branch master-old origin master-old    2 git reset --hard  new master commit        3 git push -f origin                         4    First make a master-old branch in the origin repository  based off of the master commit in the local repository  Create a new local branch for this new origin master-old branch  which will automatically be set up properly as a tracking branch   Now point your local master to whichever commit you want it to point to  Finally  force-change master in the origin repository to reflect your new local master     If you do it in any other way  you need at least one more step to ensure that master-old is properly set up to track origin master-old  None of the other solutions posted at the time of this writing include that

User · Answer

You may do the following   git -m master master-old  rename current master git checkout -b master    create a new branch master git push -f origin master  force push to master   But force pushing is a bad idea if other people are sharing this repository  Force push will cause their revision history to conflict with the new one

User · Answer

The selected answer failed when I tried it  It throws an error  refusing to delete the current branch  refs heads master  I guess I ll post what works for me   git checkout master               if not in master already  git branch placeholder            create placeholder branch git checkout placeholder          checkout to placeholder git push remote placeholder       push placeholder to remote repository  git branch -d master              remove master in local repository git push remote  master           remove master from remote repository    The trick is to checkout to the placeholder right before pushing it to remote repository  The rest is self explanatory  deleting the master branch and push it to the remote repository should works now  Excerpted from here

User · Answer

Good  My 2 cents  How about loggin in at the server  going to the git directory and renaming the branch in the bare repository  This does not have all the problems associated with reuploading the same branch  Actually  the  clients  will automatically recognize the modified name and change their remote reference  Afterwards  or before  you can also modify the local name of the branch

User · Answer

With Git v1 7  I think this has changed slightly  Updating your local branch s tracking reference to the new remote is now very easy   git branch -m old branch new branch           Rename branch locally     git push origin  old branch                   Delete the old branch     git push --set-upstream origin new branch     Push the new branch  set local branch to track the new remote

User · Answer

git update-ref newref oldref git update-ref -d oldref newref

User · Answer

I m assuming you re still asking about the same situation as in your previous question  That is  master-new will not contain master-old in its history   If you call master-new  master   you will effectively have rewritten history  It does not matter how you get into a state in which master is not a descendant of a previous position of master  simply that it is in that state    Other users attempting to pull while master does not exist will simply have their pulls fail  no such ref on remote   and once it exists again in a new place  their pulls will have to attempt to merge their master with the new remote master  just as if you merged master-old and master-new in your repository  Given what you re trying to do here  the merge would have conflicts   If they were resolved  and the result was pushed back into the repository  you d be in an even worse state - both versions of history there    To answer your question simply  you should accept that sometimes there will be mistakes in your history  This is okay  It happens to everyone  There are reverted commits in the git git repository  The important thing is that once we publish history  it is something everyone can trust    If it did  this would be equivalent to pushing some changes onto master  and then creating a new branch where it used to be  No problem

User · Answer

OK  renaming a branch both locally and on the remote is pretty easy      If you on the branch  you can easily do   git branch -m  lt branch gt   or if not  you need to do   git branch -m  lt your old branch gt   lt your new branch gt   Then  push deletion to the remote like this   git push origin  lt your old branch gt   Now you done  if you get upstream error while you trying to push  simply do   git push --set-upstream origin  lt your new branch gt   I also create the image below to show the steps in real command line  just follow the steps and you would be good

[git] Rename master branch for both local and remote Git repositories

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