Migrate remote servers in git repositories

With news like Microsoft buying GitHub people might migrate their repositories between services or add them to organizations.

The git design features a remote repository where our commits are stored (like GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket). The default remote repository is called origin.

We have two choices: Overwrite the origin destination URL, or make a new remote in our git repository.

Now we will start the process to migrate our repo.

Do a fresh clone of your current repo

Clone the repo to migrate to a temporary directory:

cd /tmp
git clone git@github.com:username/myrepo.git

Migrate the repo

In your new git remote service (or organization) create a blank repository, as an example, we will assume git@gitlab.com:username/myrepo.git.

Overwrite origin destination (recommended)

Go to your local repo directory, change the origin URL and push changes:

cd /tmp/myrepo
git remote set-url origin git@gitlab.com:username/myrepo.git
git push -u origin master

Add new remote repository

Go to your local repo directory, add a new repository URL (in our case, we call it backup) and push changes:

cd /tmp/myrepo
git remote add backup git@gitlab.com:username/myrepo.git
git push -u origin backup

Verify your changes

You can verify your remotes in your local repo with:

git remote -v

And also be sure to check your new remote repository in their website. :)

Enjoy!