How to create a branch in a bare repository in Git

Question

I current have a bare repo thats acts as a central repo for my team. The bare repo currently only have a branch "master". How can I create more branches on the bare repo?

Answer 1

Usually you don't create branches directly in the bare repository, but you push branches from one work repository to the bare

git push origin myBranch 

Update: Worth to mention

Like Paul Pladijs mentioned in the comments with

git push origin localBranchName:remoteBranchName 

you push (and create, if not exists) your local branch to the remote with a different branch name, that your local one. And to make it complete with

git push origin :remoteBranchName 

you delete a remote branch.

Answer 2

git update-ref refs/heads/new_branch refs/heads/master 

In that bare repository if you have direct access to it. You may supply any reference (a tag for instance) or a commit in the last argument.

Below is a test script:

$ mkdir non-bare-orig  $ cd non-bare-orig/  $ git init Initialized empty Git repository in D:/Temp/bare-branch/non-bare-orig/.git/  $ touch file1  $ git add --all && git commit -m"Initial commit" [master (root-commit) 9c33a5a] Initial commit  1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)  create mode 100644 file1  $ touch file2  $ git add --all && git commit -m"Second commit" [master 1f5673a] Second commit  1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)  create mode 100644 file2  $ git tag some_tag  $ touch file3  $ git add --all && git commit -m"Third commit" [master 5bed6e7] Third commit  1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)  create mode 100644 file3  $ cd ../  $ git clone --bare non-bare-orig bare-clone Cloning into bare repository 'bare-clone'... done.  $ cd bare-clone/  $ git update-ref refs/heads/branch1 refs/heads/master  $ git update-ref refs/heads/branch2 some_tag  $ git update-ref refs/heads/branch3 9c33a5a  $ git branch -vv   branch1 5bed6e7 Third commit   branch2 1f5673a Second commit   branch3 9c33a5a Initial commit * master  5bed6e7 Third commit