Git: Push to / Pull from Both Github and Bitbucket

March 11, 2013 · 6 min read

Last Updated: 2013-08-26 * Fixed: Bug in the gitpullall() script. - 2013-07-23
Refactored: gitpullall() - 2013-08-26
Updated: gitpullall() - 2015-03-07: Now it can handle branches. So pulling on branch works. The old version always pulled from master. This version uses the name of current branch then get the same one from the remote. (e.g. remote: github, local branch: some-fix <=pull= github/some-fix)
Added: gitpullall() for Z shell (zsh) - 2015-03-07

Both Github and Bitbucket are good SCM hosting services. For some reason, you probably want to migrate your project from Github to Bitbucket or vice versa. It's easy because you just need to change the remote repository info. Sometimes, you want to keep your code in both places which means you want to push it to both Github and Bitbucket.

Pushing to both Github and Bitbucket is easy.

Here is a project cloned from Github. If you check out the remote repository info, it has only Github repo info.

$ git remote -v show 
origin  git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git (push)

The YOUR_PROJECT/.git/config file, of course, has only Github info.

[remote "origin"]
  fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
  url = git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git

To add a remote git repository on Bitbucket, use git remote set-url.

$ git remote set-url origin --add git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git 

Now, it has Bitbucket info too.

$ git remote -v show 
origin  git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git (push)
origin  git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git (push)

YOUR_PROJECT/.git/config

[remote "origin"]
  fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
  url = git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git
  url = git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git

It's enough for pushing to both Github and Bitbucket. So once it's done, you can just do

$ git push 

Whenever you want to push to both.

If it doesn't work, try git push -u origin master to set upstream.

$ git push -u origin master 

Next time, you can just do

$ git push 

e.g.) Make some changes, Commit and Push

# Add all changes
$ git add -A

# Commit changes
$ git commit -m "added: .gitignore"
[master 0e649a6] added: .gitignore
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
 create mode 100644 .gitignore

# Push to Github and Bitbucket
$ git push
Counting objects: 4, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 286 bytes, done.
Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
To git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git
   a24a46c..0e649a6  master -> master
Counting objects: 4, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 286 bytes, done.
Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote: bb/acl: YOUR_USERNAME is allowed. accepted payload.
To git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git
   a24a46c..0e649a6  master -> master

If what you need is only to push to Github and Bitbucket then you don't need to read this post any further. However, if you also want to pull data from both Github and Bitbucket, it requires a little more extra steps.

Before I show the steps, I need to point out another case that you might want to know. With what I've done here, it fetches the data only from Github when running the git pull command. If what you want is only changing it to make it pull from Bitbucket, it's simple. You just need to swap the positions of origin urls in the YOUR_PROJECT/.git/config file.

So change from this

[remote "origin"]
  fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
  url = git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git
  url = git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git

[remote "origin"]
  fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
  url = git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git
  url = git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git

Now it pulls from Bitbucket instead of Github.

To pull from both Github and Bitbucket, first add the remote repository information using git remote.

$ git remote add github git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git 
$ git remote add bitbucket git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git 

You can add both Github and Bitbucket or just the one that is not pulled when running git pull. It's all up to you. Now, the YOUR_PROJECT/.git/config file contains the information of the new remote repositories just added.

$ git remote -v show 
bitbucket git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git (fetch)
bitbucket git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git (push)
github  git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git (fetch)
github  git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git (push)
origin  git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git (push)
origin  git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git (push)

YOUR_PROJECT/.git/config now has "github" and "bitbucket" as well as "origin".

[remote "origin"]
  fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
  url = git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git
  url = git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git

[remote "github"]
  url = git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/YOUR_PROJECT.git
  fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/github/*
[remote "bitbucket"]
  url = git@bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project.git
  fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/bitbucket/*

If you run git pull, it still pulls from only Github so you need to also run git pull bitbucket master.

pull from Github
```
$ git pull 
```
or
```
$ git pull github master 
```
pull from Bitbucket
```
$ git pull bitbucket master 
```

If you want to pull it from all the remote repositories, you can use a function in shell script.

Add the following function to .bash_aliases or .bashrc or .profile depending on your OS (sorry Windows users).

~/.bash_aliases or ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile

gitpullall() for Z shell (zsh) (Add the following function to ~/.zshrc)

Then you can simply run gitpullall to pull from all the remote repositories specified in the YOUR_PROJECT/.git/config file.

To ignore repositories when pulling, add the remote repository names to the repos_to_ignore variable in the gitpullall function above.

$ gitpullall 
running: git pull
Already up-to-date.

==================================
Remote: bitbucket
----------------------------------
running: git pull bitbucket master
From bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up-to-date.
==================================

==================================
Remote: github
----------------------------------
running: git pull github master
From github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up-to-date.
==================================

==================================
Remote: origin
----------------------------------
origin is on the ignored list so ignore it.
Ignored: origin
==================================

Pull other branch than master from the remote.

# Change branch

$ git checkout test-branch 
Switched to branch 'test-branch'
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/test-branch'.

# pull from all the remote repositories

$ gitpullall 
running: git pull
Already up-to-date.

==================================
Remote: bitbucket
----------------------------------
running: git pull bitbucket test-branch
From bitbucket.org:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project
 * branch            test-branch -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up-to-date.
==================================

==================================
Remote: github
----------------------------------
running: git pull github test-branch
From github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/your_project
 * branch            test-branch -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up-to-date.
==================================

==================================
Remote: origin
----------------------------------
origin is on the ignored list so ignore it.
Ignored: origin
==================================

License for gitpullall (Opensource)