How to convert a normal Git repository to a bare o

Question

How can I convert a 'normal' Git repository to a bare one?

The main difference seems to be:

• in the normal git repository you have a .git folder inside the repository containing all relevant data and all other files build your working copy

• in a bare Git repository, there is no working copy and the folder (let's call it repo.git) contains the actual repository data

Answer 1

Here is a little BASH function you can add to your .bashrc or .profile on a UNIX based system. Once added and the shell is either restarted or the file is reloaded via a call to source ~/.profile or source ~/.bashrc.

function gitToBare() {
  if [ -d ".git" ]; then
    DIR="`pwd`"
    mv .git ..
    rm -fr *
    mv ../.git .
    mv .git/* .
    rmdir .git

    git config --bool core.bare true
    cd ..
    mv "${DIR}" "${DIR}.git"

    printf "[\x1b[32mSUCCESS\x1b[0m] Git repository converted to "
    printf "bare and renamed to\n  ${DIR}.git\n"
    cd "${DIR}.git"
  else
    printf "[\x1b[31mFAILURE\x1b[0m] Cannot find a .git directory\n"
  fi
}

Once called within a directory containing a .git directory, it will make the appropriate changes to convert the repository. If there is no .git directory present when called, a FAILURE message will appear and no file system changes will happen.

Answer 2

Wow, it's simply amazing how many people chimed in on this, especially considering it doesn't seem that not a single on stopped to ask why this person is doing what he's doing.

The ONLY difference between a bare and non-bare git repository is that the non-bare version has a working copy. The main reason you would need a bare repo is if you wanted to make it available to a third party, you can't actually work on it directly so at some point you're going to have to clone it at which point you're right back to a regular working copy version.

That being said, to convert to a bare repo all you have to do is make sure you have no commits pending and then just :

rm -R * && mv .git/* . && rm -R .git

There ya go, bare repo.

Answer 3

In case you have a repository with few local checkedout branches /refs/heads/* and few remote branch branches remotes/origin/* AND if you want to convert this into a BARE repository with all branches in /refs/heads/*

you can do the following to save the history.

1. create a bare repository
2. cd into the local repository which has local checkedout branches and remote branches
3. git push /path/to/bare/repo +refs/remotes/origin/:refs/heads/

Answer 4

Your method looks like it would work; the file structure of a bare repository is just what is inside the .git directory. But I don't know if any of the files are actually changed, so if that fails, you can just do

git clone --bare /path/to/repo

You'll probably need to do it in a different directory to avoid a name conflict, and then you can just move it back to where you want. And you may need to change the config file to point to wherever your origin repo is.

Answer 5

Please also consider to use

git clone --mirror path_to_source_repository

From the documentation:

Set up a mirror of the source repository. This implies --bare. Compared to --bare, --mirror not only maps local branches of the source to local branches of the target, it maps all refs (including remote-tracking branches, notes etc.) and sets up a refspec configuration such that all these refs are overwritten by a git remote update in the target repository.

Answer 6

Unless you specifically want or need to twiddle bits on the filesystem, it really is dead simple to create a bare version of a non-bare repository (mentioned in several other posts here). It’s part of git’s core functionality:

git clone --bare reponame bare_reponame