Git-tfs could be easily used to migrate source history from TFSVC to a git repository.
Depending on the TFVC changesets history, git-tfs could have more or less difficulties to retrieve the history (Especially in case of renamed branches). Here are described, in order, the different options that could be tried to retrieve as much history as possible. If you are not insterested by all the history (because it could be very long), you could just choose the option that suits you the best...
First fetch all the source history (with all branches) in a local git repository:
git tfs clone https://tfs.codeplex.com:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk . --branches=all
See clone command if you should use a password or an author file (recommended if you want an email address instead of a windows login in commit messages), ...
Wait quite some time, fetching changesets from TFS is a slow process :(
If only the complete history of the main branch is important for you, you could fetch only the history of the main branch and only the branches merged into it.
To do that, do not specify the --branches or use the default value of the option --branches=auto, like that:
git tfs clone https://tfs.codeplex.com:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk . --branches=auto
Unfortunately, the way how changesets are store in TFVC history, make that git-tfs is not able to handle every cases. If you still want to retrieve the history, one of the solution is to fetch the history of only one branch ignoring all the other branches and the merge changesets.
To do that, use the option --branches=none, like that:
git tfs clone https://tfs.codeplex.com:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk . --branches=none
Sometimes, the history is too long and take too much time too retrieve. Or too messy and git-tfs fails to retrieve it :( In this case, you could try to retrieve less history by passing to git-tfs, the id of a changeset from where to fetch the history.
To do that, use the option --changeset=3245, and run:
git tfs clone https://tfs.codeplex.com:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk . --changeset=3245
In the last resort, when none of the solution before has worked, your only solution remains to clone only the last Changeset. Even if it's the way that Microsoft recommend to migrate to git (surely because they doesn't provide a better way!?!), that's for us the last solution to try (or if you don't care about your history...). You could do it by running:
git tfs quick-clone https://tfs.codeplex.com:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk .
For every way to clone, you could provide to git-tfs a .gitignore file.
That way, all the files that will be ignored won't be downloaded, speeding the process.
That could be particulary usefull to ignore dependencies packages that has been commited but that should not...
Clean all the git-tfs metadatas from the commit messages:
git filter-branch -f --msg-filter "sed 's/^git-tfs-id:.*$//g'" -- --all
Then verify that all is ok and delete the folder .git/refs/original ( to delete old branches)
If you want to keep the old changesets ids in a more human format, you could use instead something like:
git filter-branch -f --msg-filter "sed 's/^git-tfs-id:.*;C\([0-9]*\)$/Changeset:\1/g'" -- --all
Note: if you do that, you won't be able to fetch tfs changesets any more. You should do that if you want to migrate definitively away of TFS!
Add a remote in your local repository toward an empty git (bare) central repository :
git remote add origin https://github.com/user/project.git
Push all the branches on your remote repository:
git push --all origin
Migration is done!
Use Total Tfs Migration (or even here for a version with some more bugfixes) to migrate your work-items from your old TFS(VC) project to your new TFS(Git) project.
When process is done, you should have in the subdirectory map of the application,
a file named ID_map_[Project1]_to_[Project2].txt containing the mapping between
old work items and new work-items ids.
Note :
- For the moment, 'Tfs Integration Platform' doesn't support TFS2013 and consequently doesn't permit to migrate work items to a TFS(Git) project.
- If one day, it is possible, mapping between old work items and new work-items ids is store in the table 'RUNTIME_MIGRATION_ITEMS' of the database 'Tfs_IntegrationPlatform'. Extract the data to create a file with each line formatted following: OldWorkItemId|NewWorkItemId
First fetch all the source history (with all branches) in a local git repository exporting work-items metadatas (using the mapping file obtained in the previous step):
git tfs clone https://tfs.codeplex.com:443/tfs/Collection $/project/trunk . --branches=all --export --export-work-item-mapping="c:\workitems\mapping\file.txt"
See clone command if you should use a password or an author file (recommended if you want an mail address instead of a windows login in commit messages), ...
Wait quite some time, fetching changesets from TFS is a slow process :(
Clean all the git-tfs metadatas from the commit messages:
git filter-branch -f --msg-filter "sed 's/^git-tfs-id:.*$//g'" -- --all
Then verify that all is ok and delete the folder .git/refs/original ( to delete old branches)
Note: if you do that, you won't be able to fetch tfs changesets any more. You should do that if you want to migrate definitively away of TFS(VC)!
Add a remote in your local repository toward an empty git (bare) central repository :
git remote add origin http://tfsserver:8080/tfs/defaultcollection/_git/MyGitProject
Push all the branches on your remote repository:
git push --all origin
Migration is done!