TFS to Git migration strategy

tfs-to-git.md

TFS to Git migration strategy

Pulling history from TFS is time consuming. Please be patient and keep an eye on your migration.

Install Git-TFS with Chocolatey

We need to install the tooling git-tfs on the local machine to help convert data from the TFS format to Git.

• Go to Chocolatey Install
• Follow instructions to install Once you have installed, run command to install git-tfs
• choco install gittfs

Clone the git-tfs utility down (instead of Chocolatey; Optional)

Navigate to:

• Releases
• Select the latest full release
• Unzip the binary on your local machine
• Set in a location that is easy to path
• Open GitBash shell and set the path:
  • set PATH=%PATH%;\GitTfs-Version
• Or you can set in your full path location if easier to achieve
• Validate that the tool is pathed correctly
  • git tfs help
  • You should see the standard help page for the tooling

Clone the TFS repository

You can follow the documentation in the main repository:

• Migration Doc You will need to create a small workspace on your local machine to do the clones and cleanups away from your development environment.

Clone everything

• git tfs clone https://TFS-Server-Name:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk . --branches=all
  • This is the longest and most expensive; it also could have the most errors

Only merged branches

• git tfs clone https://TFS-Server-Name:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk . --branches=auto
  • This is a cleaner version with some of the history

Master branch only

• git tfs clone https://TFS-Server-Name:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk . --branches=none
  • Only history for what is in master; this clean and efficient

Single changeset only

• git tfs clone https://TFS-Server-Name:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk . --changeset=3245
  • We're really reaching for some history at this point... going off the beaten path... This is not advisable

Latest changeset only

• git tfs quick-clone https://TFS-Server-Name:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk .
  • Just the latest changeset that was pushed into master

Clean the repository

You can now clean the commits, remove trash, etc

• git filter-branch -f --msg-filter "sed 's/^git-tfs-id:.*$//g'" -- --all
• Delete the git folder
• rm -rf .git/refs/original
• Add optional gitignore file:
  • Examples

Create empty GitHub repository

Log into GitHub.com and navigate to your Organization. You will need to create a repository that is ready for the initial push

• Select to create repo and do NOT initialize with README.md or .gitignore
• Select the naming scheme you would like to follow and name the repository
• It will give you the origin and push commands that you need to run on your shell to push the code to GitHub

Example of pushing to GitHub

echo "# RepoName" >> README.md
echo "TFS History for this repo can be found at: [RepoName](tfs.com/path) " >> README.md
git init
git add README.md
git commit -m "first commit"
git remote add origin git@github.com:<YourOrganization>/<RepoName>.git
git push -u origin master

Prepare workspace for another migration

• Change directory into your migration folder and run the following commands
  • rm -rf * .git .nuget
• Verify the folder is clean
  • ls -la
• If it the folder is clear, you can start the next repository migration

TFS to Git utilizing TFS 2017+ or Azure DevOps

If the customer is utilizing TFS 2017+ or greater, or is utilizing Microsoft Azure DevOps, then they have the opportunity to migrate their source code data from tfsvc to git utilizing the SCM tool. The short comings to this method:

• The built in will migrate the source for up to 6 months backwards in history
• The built in will only migrate the master branch

If this is acceptable to the end user, then they can follow the information outlined below:

• Migrate from TFS to git utilizing the tooling