Make an existing Git branch track a remote branch

Question

I know how to make a new branch that tracks remote branches  but how do I make an existing branch track a remote branch   I know I can just edit the  git config file  but it seems there should be an easier way

User · Answer

For Git versions 1 8 0 and higher  Actually for the accepted answer to work  git remote add upstream  lt remote-url gt  git fetch upstream git branch -f --track qa upstream qa   OR Git version 1 8 0 and higher  git branch --set-upstream-to upstream qa   Gitversions lower than 1 8 0 git branch --set-upstream qa upstream qa

User · Answer

This would work too  git branch --set-upstream-to   lt  remote gt   lt  branch gt   lt  localbranch gt

User · Answer

I use the following command  Suppose your local branch name is  branch-name-local  and remote branch name is  branch-name-remote       git branch --set-upstream-to origin branch-name-remote branch-name-local   If both local and remote branches have the same name  then just do the following     git branch --set-upstream-to origin branch-name branch-name

User · Answer

Make sure you run     git config push default tracking   to be able to push trouble free

User · Answer

You can do the following  assuming you are checked out on master and want to push to a remote branch master    Set up the  remote  if you don t have it already  git remote add origin ssh         Now configure master to know to track   git config branch master remote origin git config branch master merge refs heads master   And push   git push origin master

User · Answer

Editing  git config is probably the easiest and fastest way  That s what the Git commands for handling remote branches are doing  anyway   If you don t want to muck with the file by hand  and it s not that hard to do   you can always use git config to do it   but again  that s just going to edit the  git config file  anyway   There are  of course  ways to automatically track a remote branch when using git checkout  by passing the --track flag  for example   but these commands work with new branches  not existing ones

User · Answer

I believe that in as early as Git 1 5 x you could make a local branch  BRANCH track a remote branch origin  BRANCH  like this   Given that  BRANCH and origin  BRANCH exist  and you ve not currently checked out  BRANCH  switch away if you have   do   git branch -f --track  BRANCH origin  BRANCH   This recreates  BRANCH as a tracking branch  The -f forces the creation despite  BRANCH existing already  --track is optional if the usual defaults are in place  that is  the git-config parameter branch autosetupmerge is true    Note  if origin  BRANCH doesn t exist yet  you can create it by pushing your local  BRANCH into the remote repository with   git push origin  BRANCH   Followed by the previous command to promote the local branch into a tracking branch

User · Answer

I do this as a side-effect of pushing with the -u option as in    git push -u origin branch-name   The equivalent long option is --set-upstream   The git-branch command also understands --set-upstream  but its use can be confusing  Version 1 8 0 modifies the interface      git branch --set-upstream is deprecated and may be removed in a relatively distant future   git branch  -u --set-upstream-to  has been introduced with a saner order of arguments        hellip       It was tempting to say git branch --set-upstream origin master  but that tells Git to arrange the local branch  origin master  to integrate with the currently checked out branch  which is highly unlikely what the user meant  The option is deprecated  use the new --set-upstream-to  with a short-and-sweet -u  option instead    Say you have a local foo branch and want it to treat the branch by the same name as its upstream  Make this happen with    git branch foo   git branch --set-upstream-to origin foo   or just    git branch --set-upstream-to origin foo foo

User · Answer

or simply by      switch to the branch if you are not in it already    za   git checkout branch name   run    za   git branch --set-upstream origin branch name Branch origin set up to track local branch brnach name by rebasing    and you ready to      za   git push origin branch name   You can alawys take a look at the config file to see what is tracking what by running     za   git config -e   It s also nice to know this  it shows which branches are tracked and which ones are not         za   git remote show origin

User · Answer

You might find the git remote branch tool useful  It offers simple commands for creating  publishing  deleting  tracking  amp  renaming remote branches  One nice feature is that you can ask a grb command to explain what git commands it would execute   grb explain create my branch github   git remote branch version 0 3 0    List of operations to do to create a new remote branch and track it locally  git push github master refs heads my branch git fetch github git branch --track my branch github my branch git checkout my branch

User · Answer

Here  using github and git version 2 1 4  just do     git clone git github com user repo git   And remotes come by itelsef  even if not linked locally     git remote show origin    remote origin   Fetch URL  git github com user repo git   Push  URL  git github com user repo git   HEAD branch  master   Remote branches      develop tracked          lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt      master  tracked   Local branch configured for  git pull       master merges with remote master   Local ref configured for  git push       master pushes to master  up to date    But of course  still no local branch     git branch   master                   lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt  lt    See  Now if you just checkout develp  it will do the magic automatically     git checkout develop Branch develop set up to track remote branch develop from origin  Switched to a new branch  develop    So easy     Summary  Just run this 2 commands     git clone git github com user repo git   git checkout develop

User · Answer

Given a branch foo and a remote upstream  As of Git 1 8 0  git branch -u upstream foo  Or  if local branch foo is not the current branch  git branch -u upstream foo foo  Or  if you like to type longer commands  these are equivalent to the above two  git branch --set-upstream-to upstream foo  git branch --set-upstream-to upstream foo foo  As of Git 1 7 0  before 1 8 0   git branch --set-upstream foo upstream foo  Notes   All of the above commands will cause local branch foo to track remote branch foo from remote upstream  The old  1 7 x  syntax is deprecated in favor of the new  1 8   syntax   The new syntax is intended to be more intuitive and easier to remember  Defining an upstream branch will fail when run against newly-created remotes that have not already been fetched  In that case  run git fetch upstream beforehand    See also  Why do I need to do  --set-upstream  all the time

User · Answer

For creating new branch  we could use following command     git checkout --track -b example origin example  For the already created branch to create link between remote then from that branch use below command   git branch -u origin remote-branch-name

User · Answer

For anyone who  like me  just wants to sync up your local branch name with the remote branch name  here s a handy command   git branch -u origin   git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD

User · Answer

In a somewhat related way I was trying to add a remote tracking branch to an existing branch  but did not have access to that remote repository on the system where I wanted to add that remote tracking branch on  because I frequently export a copy of this repo via sneakernet to another system that has the access to push to that remote   I found that there was no way to force adding a remote branch on the local that hadn t been fetched yet  so local did not know that the branch existed on the remote and I would get the error  the requested upstream branch  origin remotebranchname  does not exist     In the end I managed to add the new  previously unknown remote branch  without fetching  by adding a new head file at  git refs remotes origin remotebranchname and then copying the ref  eyeballing was quickest  lame as it was  -  from the system with access to the origin repo to the workstation  with the local repo where I was adding the remote branch on    Once that was done  I could then use git branch --set-upstream-to origin remotebranchname

User · Answer

1- update your local meta-data using    git fetch --all    2- show your remote and local branches using   git branch -a   see the following Screenshot    3- switch to target branch   that you want to linked with the remote  using  git checkout branchName  example        4- Link your local branch to a remote branch using    git branch --set-upstream-to  nameOfRemoteBranch  N B    nameOfRemoteBranch   to copy from the output of step 2   git branch -r    Example of use

User · Answer

Use  --track  Option   After a git pull    git checkout --track  lt remote-branch-name gt  Or   git fetch  amp  amp  git checkout  lt branch-name gt

User · Answer

This isn t a direct answer to this question  but I wanted to leave a note here for anyone who may be having the same issue as me when trying to configure an upstream branch   Be wary of push default    With older git versions  the default was matching  which would cause very undesirable behaviour if you have  for example   Local branch  master  tracking to origin master  Remote branch  upstream  tracking to upstream master  If you tried to  git push  when on the  upstream  branch  with push default matching git would automatically try to merge the local branch  master  into  upstream master   causing a whole lot of chaos   This gives more sane behaviour   git config --global push default upstream

User · Answer

To avoid remembering what you need to do each time you get the message       Please specify which branch you want to merge with  See git-pull 1    for details            You can use the following script which sets origin as upstream for the current branch you are in     In my case I almost never set something else than origin as the default upstream  Also I almost always keep the same branch name for local and remote branch  So the following fits me      bin bash   scriptname  git-branch-set-originupstream current branch    git branch   grep -oP     lt                upstream  origin  current branch  git branch -u   upstream

User · Answer

In very short  git branch --set-upstream yourLocalBranchName origin develop   This will make your yourLocalBranchName track the remote branch called develop

User · Answer

For git version 2 25 1  use the command  git push --set-upstream origin  lt local branch name gt

User · Answer

For 1 6 x  it can be done using the git remote branch tool   grb track foo upstream   That will cause Git to make foo track upstream foo

[git] Make an existing Git branch track a remote branch?

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