:: The "remote" repository to pull from. One of the following notations can be used to name the repository to pull from: Rsync URL rsync://remote.machine/path/to/repo.git/ HTTP(s) URL http://remote.machine/path/to/repo.git/ GIT URL git://remote.machine/path/to/repo.git/ remote.machine:/path/to/repo.git/ Local directory /path/to/repo.git/ In addition to the above, as a short-hand, the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes directory can be given; the named file should be in the following format: URL: one of the above URL format Push: ... Pull: ... When such a short-hand is specified in place of without parameters on the command line, ... specified on Push lines or Pull lines are used for "git push" and "git fetch/pull", respectively. The name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches directory can be specified as an older notation short-hand; the named file should contain a single line, a URL in one of the above formats, optionally followed by a hash '#' and the name of remote head (URL fragment notation). $GIT_DIR/branches/ file that stores a without the fragment is equivalent to have this in the corresponding file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes/ directory URL: Pull: refs/heads/master: while having # is equivalent to URL: Pull: refs/heads/: :: The canonical format of a parameter is '+?:'; that is, an optional plus '+', followed by the source ref, followed by a colon ':', followed by the destination ref. When used in "git push", the side can be an arbitrary "SHA1 expression" that can be used as an argument to "git-cat-file -t". E.g. "master~4" (push four parents before the current master head). For "git push", the local ref that matches is used to fast forward the remote ref that matches . If the optional plus '+' is used, the remote ref is updated even if it does not result in a fast forward update. For "git fetch/pull", the remote ref that matches is fetched, and if is not empty string, the local ref that matches it is fast forwarded using . Again, if the optional plus '+' is used, the local ref is updated even if it does not result in a fast forward update. Some short-cut notations are also supported. * For backward compatibility, "tag" is almost ignored; it just makes the following parameter to mean a refspec "refs/tags/:refs/tags/". * A parameter without a colon is equivalent to : when pulling/fetching, and : when pushing. That is, do not store it locally if fetching, and update the same name if pushing. -a, \--append:: Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the existing contents of $GIT_DIR/FETCH_HEAD. Without this option old data in $GIT_DIR/FETCH_HEAD will be overwritten. -f, \--force:: Usually, the command refuses to update a local ref that is not an ancestor of the remote ref used to overwrite it. This flag disables the check. What this means is that the local repository can lose commits; use it with care.