Cloning Linux from a Bundle

If you find yourself on an unreliable Internet connection and need to perform a fresh clone of Linux.git, you may find it tricky to do so if your connection resets before you are able to complete the clone. There is currently no way to resume a git clone using git, but there is a neat trick you can use instead of cloning directly — using git bundle files.

Here is how you would do it.

1. Start with “wget -c“, which tells wget to continue interrupted downloads. If your connection resets, just rerun the same command while in the same directory, and it will pick up where it left off:

   wget -c https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/clone.bundle

2. Once the download is completed, verify that the bundle has downloaded correctly:

   git bundle verify clone.bundle
   ...
   clone.bundle is okay
   

3. Next, clone from the bundle:

   git clone clone.bundle linux
   

4. Now, point the origin to the live git repository and get the latest changes:

   cd linux
   git remote remove origin
   git remote add origin https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
   git pull origin master
   

Once this is done, you can delete the “clone.bundle” file, unless you think you will need to perform a fresh clone again in the future.

The “clone.bundle” files are generated weekly on Sunday, so they should contain most objects you need, even during kernel merge windows when there are lots of changes committed daily.