branch - Git doesn't clone all branches on subsequent clones?

Question

I have some problems with Git using cloned repositories and branches and it's somehow not possible for me to find an answer to this. Let me describe: we have a bare master Git repository here we all pull from and push to, located on a local linux machine and reachable with ssh. I made a clone of this to my usb thumb drive like this:

git clone ssh://adahl@gollum//net/repos/netcube/patches.git

This gives me of course a local clone with a working copy on my thumb drive. I cd to this and see some branches in this clone then:

cd patches
git branch -a
* master
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/master
  remotes/origin/stable

So far so good, however if I clone the repository on my thumb drive another time to my notebook the stable branch is lost. See:

cd ..
git clone patches patches2

cd patches2

git branch -a
* master
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/master

I tried several options when cloning or a git fetch after cloning, nothing brings the stable branch to the patches2 repository. I assume I have a lack of understandig git here and simply use it the wrong way. Could someone please point me to my error in usage and/or understanding?

Answer 1

In addition to @ThiefMaster:

I like to

git clone --mirror

or

git push --mirror 

to update all (local & remote) branch refs and tags

Additional info As noted, --mirror will really replicate the repo as is, thus overwritany changes in the destination. Branches that do not exist in the source will get pruned unconditionally.

Essentially, it is like working with a remote and doing 'git remote update --prune', the difference being that the branches affected can be local branches as well as 'remote' refs[1]

@LeSpocky (and others?)

Now if changes disappear, they will never generate merge problems, so that's easy.

--mirror is named after the real-life concept, so it was designed to pave over any differences in the target. If the target is non-bare, and you had local changes committed, you can always get them back via the reflog of the target's local branch (git log -g, git reflog).

As a general safety measure you could have a hook to 'git stash save' in the target.

Keep in mind though, that --mirror was designed to, well, mirror and this question was in fact on how to replicate all branches to a bare remote. :)

[1] (the refs are there, but the remote definitions don't get copied; if you want that, do a manual copy from .git/config to .git/config on the push destination)