Make an existing Git branch track a remote branch?

Question

I know how to make a new branch that tracks remote branches, but how do I make an existing branch track a remote branch?

I know I can just edit the

Answer 1

I do this as a side-effect of pushing with the -u option as in

$ git push -u origin branch-name

The equivalent long option is --set-upstream.

The git-branch command also understands --set-upstream, but its use can be confusing. Version 1.8.0 modifies the interface.

git branch --set-upstream is deprecated and may be removed in a relatively distant future. git branch [-u|--set-upstream-to] has been introduced with a saner order of arguments.

…

It was tempting to say git branch --set-upstream origin/master, but that tells Git to arrange the local branch "origin/master" to integrate with the currently checked out branch, which is highly unlikely what the user meant. The option is deprecated; use the new --set-upstream-to (with a short-and-sweet -u) option instead.

Say you have a local foo branch and want it to treat the branch by the same name as its upstream. Make this happen with

$ git branch foo
$ git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/foo

or just

$ git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/foo foo