How to Move a Git Repository with Multiple Branches to a New Server

Introduction

You want to move a repository to a new git server, but your repo has too many branches to move them one by one.

Solution

We will use a simple bash script to get the list of branches from the original repo’s remote (origin) and push them to the new repo’s remote (dest).

Syntax

First, let’s define the syntax for our script:

./sync.sh path-to-directory origin dest

In this script:

• origin and dest are the two remotes set in the local repo you cloned.
• path-to-directory is the relative path to the directory containing your local repo.

Step 1: Clone the Original Repo

Clone the original repo:

git clone git://path-to-your-repo
cd your-repo
git fetch --all

Step 2: Add the New Repo Remote

Add the URL of the new repo to your local repo:

git remote add dest git://path-to-your-remote-dest

Step 3: Get the List of Branches

Get the list of branch names from the original remote. We need to remove the remote part from the branch name, e.g., origin/master becomes master:

git branch -r | grep -v '\->' | grep 'origin/' | sed "s/origin\///g"

Step 4: Sync the Branches

Sync all branches using a while loop:

function sync {
  while read line
  do
    writeHR;
    echo "Checking out $line";
    git checkout $line;
    git pull origin $line;
    git pull dest $line;
    git push dest $line;
  done;
}

Complete Script

Combining the steps above, we have the complete script:

#!/bin/bash

function writeHR {
  echo '---------------------'
}

function sync {
  while read line
  do
    writeHR;
    echo "Checking out $line";
    git checkout $line;
    git pull $src $line;
    git pull $dest $line;
    git push $dest $line;
  done;
}

cd $1;
echo "You are currently on `realpath .`"

src="$2";
dest="$3";

echo "Fetching remote: $src";
git fetch $src;
echo "Fetching remote: $dest";
git fetch $dest;

git branch -r | grep -v '\->' | grep $src/ | sed "s/$src\///g" | sync

Here, we use $src and $dest as the names of the two remotes. These variables are passed into the script when it’s called:

./sync.sh path-to-directory src-remote dest-remote

You can find this script on Gist: https://gist.github.com/thanhtunguet/bac5a6b6fc21a6b0ada66cc7fee1e776