git-repack

GIT-REPACK(1)                     Git Manual                     GIT-REPACK(1)

NAME
       git-repack - Pack unpacked objects in a repository

SYNOPSIS
       git repack [-a] [-A] [-d] [-f] [-F] [-l] [-n] [-q] [-b] [--window=<n>] [--depth=<n>] [--threads=<n>] [--keep-pack=<pack-name>]

DESCRIPTION
       This command is used to combine all objects that do not currently
       reside in a "pack", into a pack. It can also be used to re-organize
       existing packs into a single, more efficient pack.

       A pack is a collection of objects, individually compressed, with delta
       compression applied, stored in a single file, with an associated index
       file.

       Packs are used to reduce the load on mirror systems, backup engines,
       disk storage, etc.

OPTIONS
       -a
           Instead of incrementally packing the unpacked objects, pack
           everything referenced into a single pack. Especially useful when
           packing a repository that is used for private development. Use with
           -d. This will clean up the objects that git prune leaves behind,
           but git fsck --full --dangling shows as dangling.

           Note that users fetching over dumb protocols will have to fetch the
           whole new pack in order to get any contained object, no matter how
           many other objects in that pack they already have locally.

           Promisor packfiles are repacked separately: if there are packfiles
           that have an associated ".promisor" file, these packfiles will be
           repacked into another separate pack, and an empty ".promisor" file
           corresponding to the new separate pack will be written.

       -A
           Same as -a, unless -d is used. Then any unreachable objects in a
           previous pack become loose, unpacked objects, instead of being left
           in the old pack. Unreachable objects are never intentionally added
           to a pack, even when repacking. This option prevents unreachable
           objects from being immediately deleted by way of being left in the
           old pack and then removed. Instead, the loose unreachable objects
           will be pruned according to normal expiry rules with the next git
           gc invocation. See git-gc(1).

       -d
           After packing, if the newly created packs make some existing packs
           redundant, remove the redundant packs. Also run git prune-packed to
           remove redundant loose object files.

       -l
           Pass the --local option to git pack-objects. See git-pack-
           objects(1).

       -f
           Pass the --no-reuse-delta option to git-pack-objects, see git-pack-
           objects(1).

       -F
           Pass the --no-reuse-object option to git-pack-objects, see git-
           pack-objects(1).

       -q
           Pass the -q option to git pack-objects. See git-pack-objects(1).

       -n
           Do not update the server information with git update-server-info.
           This option skips updating local catalog files needed to publish
           this repository (or a direct copy of it) over HTTP or FTP. See git-
           update-server-info(1).

       --window=<n>, --depth=<n>
           These two options affect how the objects contained in the pack are
           stored using delta compression. The objects are first internally
           sorted by type, size and optionally names and compared against the
           other objects within --window to see if using delta compression
           saves space.  --depth limits the maximum delta depth; making it too
           deep affects the performance on the unpacker side, because delta
           data needs to be applied that many times to get to the necessary
           object.

           The default value for --window is 10 and --depth is 50. The maximum
           depth is 4095.

       --threads=<n>
           This option is passed through to git pack-objects.

       --window-memory=<n>
           This option provides an additional limit on top of --window; the
           window size will dynamically scale down so as to not take up more
           than <n> bytes in memory. This is useful in repositories with a mix
           of large and small objects to not run out of memory with a large
           window, but still be able to take advantage of the large window for
           the smaller objects. The size can be suffixed with "k", "m", or
           "g".  --window-memory=0 makes memory usage unlimited. The default
           is taken from the pack.windowMemory configuration variable. Note
           that the actual memory usage will be the limit multiplied by the
           number of threads used by git-pack-objects(1).

       --max-pack-size=<n>
           Maximum size of each output pack file. The size can be suffixed
           with "k", "m", or "g". The minimum size allowed is limited to 1
           MiB. If specified, multiple packfiles may be created, which also
           prevents the creation of a bitmap index. The default is unlimited,
           unless the config variable pack.packSizeLimit is set.

       -b, --write-bitmap-index
           Write a reachability bitmap index as part of the repack. This only
           makes sense when used with -a or -A, as the bitmaps must be able to
           refer to all reachable objects. This option overrides the setting
           of repack.writeBitmaps. This option has no effect if multiple
           packfiles are created.

       --pack-kept-objects
           Include objects in .keep files when repacking. Note that we still
           do not delete .keep packs after pack-objects finishes. This means
           that we may duplicate objects, but this makes the option safe to
           use when there are concurrent pushes or fetches. This option is
           generally only useful if you are writing bitmaps with -b or
           repack.writeBitmaps, as it ensures that the bitmapped packfile has
           the necessary objects.

       --keep-pack=<pack-name>
           Exclude the given pack from repacking. This is the equivalent of
           having .keep file on the pack.  <pack-name> is the pack file name
           without leading directory (e.g.  pack-123.pack). The option could
           be specified multiple times to keep multiple packs.

       --unpack-unreachable=<when>
           When loosening unreachable objects, do not bother loosening any
           objects older than <when>. This can be used to optimize out the
           write of any objects that would be immediately pruned by a
           follow-up git prune.

       -k, --keep-unreachable
           When used with -ad, any unreachable objects from existing packs
           will be appended to the end of the packfile instead of being
           removed. In addition, any unreachable loose objects will be packed
           (and their loose counterparts removed).

       -i, --delta-islands
           Pass the --delta-islands option to git-pack-objects, see git-pack-
           objects(1).

CONFIGURATION
       By default, the command passes --delta-base-offset option to git
       pack-objects; this typically results in slightly smaller packs, but the
       generated packs are incompatible with versions of Git older than
       version 1.4.4. If you need to share your repository with such ancient
       Git versions, either directly or via the dumb http protocol, then you
       need to set the configuration variable repack.UseDeltaBaseOffset to
       "false" and repack. Access from old Git versions over the native
       protocol is unaffected by this option as the conversion is performed on
       the fly as needed in that case.

SEE ALSO
       git-pack-objects(1) git-prune-packed(1)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.25.1                        04/26/2023                     GIT-REPACK(1)