Renaming branches remotely in Git

Question

If there is a repository that I only have git:// access to (and would usually just push+pull), is there a way to rename branches in that repository in the same

Answer 1

If you really just want to rename branches remotely, without renaming any local branches at the same time, you can do this with a single command:

git push  /:refs/heads/ :

I wrote this script (git-rename-remote-branch) which provides a handy shortcut to do the above easily.

As a bash function:

git-rename-remote-branch(){
  if [ $# -ne 3 ]; then
    echo "Rationale : Rename a branch on the server without checking it out."
    echo "Usage     : ${FUNCNAME[0]}   "
    echo "Example   : ${FUNCNAME[0]} origin master release"
    return 1 
  fi

  git push $1 $1/$2\:refs/heads/$3 :$2
}

To integrate @ksrb's comment: What this basically does is two pushes in a single command, first git push /:refs/heads/ to push a new remote branch based on the old remote tracking branch and then git push : to delete the old remote branch.