How do I push a new local branch to a remote Git repository and track it too?

Question

I want to be able to do the following:

1. Create a local branch based on some other (remote or local) branch (via git branch or git checkout

Answer 1

Prior to the introduction of git push -u, there was no git push option to obtain what you desire. You had to add new configuration statements.

If you create a new branch using:

$ git checkout -b branchB
$ git push origin branchB:branchB

You can use the git config command to avoid editing directly the .git/config file.

$ git config branch.branchB.remote origin
$ git config branch.branchB.merge refs/heads/branchB

Or you can edit manually the .git/config file to had tracking information to this branch.

[branch "branchB"]
    remote = origin
    merge = refs/heads/branchB