how to make "full" copy of a repo

Hey.

I was looking for an ideally simple way to make a "full" copy of a git repo. Many howtos are floating around on this on the web, with also lots of voodoo.

First, it shouldn't be just a clone, i.o.w.
- I want to have all refs (local/remote branches/tags) and of course all
objects from the source repo copied as is.
So it's local branches should become my local branches and not remote
branches as well - and so on.
Basically I want to be able to delete the source afterwards (and all
backups ;) ) and not having anything lost.

- It shouldn't set the source repo as origin or it's branches as remote
tracking branches, as said it should be identical the source repo, just
"freshly copied" via the "Git aware transport mechanisms".

- Whether GC or repacking happens, I don't care, as long as nothing that
is still reachable in the source repo wouldn't get lost (or get lost
once I run a GC in the copied repo).

- Whether anything that other tools have added to .git (e.g. git-svn
stuff) get's lost, I don't care.

- It should work for both, bare and non-bare repos, but it's okay when
it doesn't copy anything that is not committed or stashed.

I'd have said that either: $ git clone --mirror URl-to-source-repo copy for the direction from "outside" the source to a copy, or alternatively: $ cd source-repo $ git push --mirror URl-to-copy for the direction from "within" the source to a copy with copy being an empty bare or non-bare repo, would do the job.

But:

a) but the git-clone(1) part for --mirror:
   >and sets up a refspec configuration such that all these refs are
   >overwritten by a git remote update in the target repository.
   kinda confuses me since I wanted to get independent of the source
   repo and this ssems to set up a remote to it?

b) do I need --all --tags for the push as well?

c) When following
   https://help.github.com/articles/duplicating-a-repository/
   it doesn't seem as if --mirror is what I want because they seem to
   advertise it rather as having the copy tracking the source repo.
   Of course I read about just using git-clone --bare, but that seems to
   not copy everything that --mirror does (remote-tracking branches,
   notes).

   So I'm a bit confused...

1) Is it working like I assumed above?
2) Does that also copy things like git-config, hooks, etc.?
3) Does it copy the configured remotes from the source?
4) What else is not copied by that? I'd assume anything that is not
   tracked by git and the stash of the source?

Thanks a lot, Chris.