Migrate a repository from bazaar to git

Developers may have the need to change some tools they work with everyday, like VCS. This guide explains how to completely port a bazaar repository to a Git one.

Porting

Porting the repo is no more than few commands:

$ cp -pr repo-dir repo-dir_backup                 # Make a backup
$ cd repo-dir                                     # Change into your dir
$ git init                                        # Initialise a new git repo
$ bzr fast-export --plain . | git fast-import     # Do the actual conversion
$ git co -f master                                # Will reply 'Already on master'
$ rm -rf .bzr                                     # Remove the bzr data

Check

Now verify that everything is there:

$ git log

You should see the commit history.

Double check using:

$ diff -r repo-dir repo-dir_backup

Do it before you delete the backup directory.

Migrate the ignore file

Migrate .bzrignore to .gitignore:

$ git mv .bzrignore .gitignore

Commit all the things

Commit the repository migration:

$ git commit -a -m "Migrated from Bazaar to Git."

Optional: Now, you can add a remote to your git repo.

Troubleshooting

If you get ERROR: unknown command "fast-export"), type:

$ sudo apt-get install bzr-fastimport

to sort it out.

Thanks for reading.

Sources

• https://astrofloyd.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/convert-bzr-to-git/
• https://flexion.org/posts/2012-10-migrating-bzr-to-git.html
• https://design.canonical.com/2015/01/converting-projects-between-git-and-bazaar/