git checkout seems to download from server

Question

I'm using a remote git repository with multiple branches.

From the documentation I understand that I switch between branches by doing

git checkout master

or

git checkout branchname

I also understand that the repository is cloned onto my local machine (and that this is updated by doing git fetch)

But when I do

git checkout master

git checkout branchname

git checkout master

in quick succession the system clearly downloads stuff from the server (at least, /sbin/ifconfig shows I'm downloading tens of megabytes)

What have I misunderstood here?

`ifconfig` is not a reliable means to measure your current bandwidth use for any particular application. — Burhan Khalid, May 27 '13 at 05:53

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:50

2

system clearly downloads stuff from the server

No, git checkout is a purely local operation, based on the full history of the repo cloned locally.
You could shut down any network connection that it would still work.

Even when you do a checkout of a remote branch (also described here), it is still local (since said "remote" branch is actually fetched and stored in the local namespace called "remotes")

git checkout --track -b haml origin/haml

edited May 23 '17 at 11:50

Community

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answered May 27 '13 at 05:58

VonC

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Yes, I now realise that the results of ifconfig, and the time it took, were the NFS connection to our local fileserver. It seems that git works very badly with NFS – user2423780 Feb 16 '18 at 01:12

git checkout seems to download from server

1 Answers1