This tutorial will show how to setup a local repository for working with 2 remote repositories. The assumption is that we want to pull and push certain features to a public repository, while having a private repository for independent development, that will only merge changes from the public.
First clone the public repository and move into the project folder.
git clone https://github.com/example/example.git cd example
Next we may need to work on an existing branch of the repository e.g b1
so we need to switch to it.
git checkout b1
This operation basically fetches loads the latest revision of remote branch and creates a local branch with the same name. That means if someone merges this branch into master the local branch will still be branch1 but it will track the remote master.
First we create a new branch, let's call it private_master
git checkout -b private_master
which is shorthand for
git branch private_master git checkout private_master
If the repository exists already one should first merge it in the new branch
git remote add --track master private git://bitbucket.org/example/example.git git pull private master
which is shortcut for
git fetch private git merge private/master
Merge changes from b1 branch
(when in private_master)
git merge b1
If you merge changes in the wrong branch e.g in master instead of b1, assuming you are in master
git reset --hard origin/master
and more generally
git reset --hard remote_name/remote_branch
See details about the branches that are tracked from a specific remote and their status
git remote show remote_name
Avoid pushing accidentally to a remote if you only need it for pulling by setting the remote url to a dummy value
git remote set-url --push remote_name nopush
list all branches including remote branches with information about latest commit
git branch -a -v
push to a specific branch
git push remote_branch remote_name
or in configuration file add
[remote “remote_branch”]
push = local_name:remote_name
Improvements and/or corrections are welcome