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 believe that in as early as Git 1.5.x you could make a local branch $BRANCH track a remote branch origin/$BRANCH, like this.

Given that $BRANCH and origin/$BRANCH exist, and you've not currently checked out $BRANCH (switch away if you have), do:

git branch -f --track $BRANCH origin/$BRANCH

This recreates $BRANCH as a tracking branch. The -f forces the creation despite $BRANCH existing already. --track is optional if the usual defaults are in place (that is, the git-config parameter branch.autosetupmerge is true).

Note, if origin/$BRANCH doesn't exist yet, you can create it by pushing your local $BRANCH into the remote repository with:

git push origin $BRANCH

Followed by the previous command to promote the local branch into a tracking branch.