# git clone out of memory. alternatives? 3 messages from 2008-03-28 to 2008-03-28. Participants: Jeffrey Chang, Linus Torvalds, Johannes Schindelin. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/12893 ## Jeffrey Chang, 2008-03-28 02:29 Subject: git clone out of memory. alternatives? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/beb5fde90803271929u40a98915ifd05234476ab92f9%40mail.gmail.com ``` Hello, I am working with a large-ish git repository set up as a shared repository. I am the only user of this repository, and I access it over ssh. I am running into a problem where I can no longer clone the repository on a new computer. I get a message that seems to indicate that the machine with the repository is running out of memory. xigua:~/remotecvs jchang$ git clone [...] Initialized empty Git repository in [...] remote: Generating pack... remote: Done counting 9122 objects. remote: Deltifying 9122 objects... error: git-upload-pack: git-pack-objects died with error. fatal: git-upload-pack: aborting due to possible repository corruption on the remote side. remote: fatal: out of memoryremote: remote: aborting due to possible repository corruption on the remote side. fatal: early EOF fatal: index-pack failed fetch-pack from [...] failed. xigua:~/remotecvs jchang$ Moving the repository to another machine is not an option, nor is adding more RAM to that machine. Is there any way to get around this problem? For example: - Can I run git clone in a way that uses less memory, such as cloning a piece of the repository at a time? - Can I export the entire repository as a file that can be loaded on my target machine, like "svnadmin dump" for subversion? - Can I just rsync the repository from another computer that already has a copy? - Are there any other work-arounds to set up a copy of the repository on my local machine? Thanks, Jeff ``` ## Linus Torvalds, 2008-03-28 03:04 Subject: Re: git clone out of memory. alternatives? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LFD.1.00.0803272001120.14670%40woody.linux-foundation.org In-Reply-To: ``` On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, Jeffrey Chang wrote: > > Is there any way to get around this problem? For example: > - Can I run git clone in a way that uses less memory, such as cloning > a piece of the repository at a time? Cloning really is pretty memory-intensive, because it involves going through every single object. What you *can* do is to limit cloning to the rsync protocol, which is strictly quite horrible (none of the inherent sanity-checks of the native protocol), but it avoids the server-side costs. However, you'll eventually hit other problems, like the fact that you also won't be able to do a full repack on the server side (because a full repack does the same thing). > - Can I export the entire repository as a file that can be loaded on > my target machine, like "svnadmin dump" for subversion? That's essentially what a repack does. See above about the problem. > - Can I just rsync the repository from another computer that already has a copy? Yes. You can. And you can also repack on another host and then rsync the results back to the server. It's not pretty, but it should work. Linus ``` ## Johannes Schindelin, 2008-03-28 11:55 Subject: Re: git clone out of memory. alternatives? Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.LSU.1.00.0803281250230.3802%40racer.site In-Reply-To: ``` Hi, On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, Jeffrey Chang wrote: > I am working with a large-ish git repository set up as a shared > repository. I am the only user of this repository, and I access it over > ssh. > > I am running into a problem where I can no longer clone the repository > on a new computer. I get a message that seems to indicate that the > machine with the repository is running out of memory. AFAICT the config variables pack.* (see config.txt) allow to tune the packing, even for cloning. Hth, Dscho ```