clonetool

clonetool is a command-line utility written in Rust designed to clone all repositories for specified GitHub or GitLab users or organizations. It's a handy tool for quickly backing up or managing repositories, with added support for pulling updates to existing clones.

Features

• Clones all repositories for specified GitHub or GitLab users or organizations.
• Clones repositories into separate folders named after the user/organization in a specified destination directory.
• Provides a --debug flag for verbose output, including executed git commands.
• Allows pulling updates (git pull) for all branches of existing repositories using the --pull or -p flag.
• Excludes specific repositories using the --exclude or -x flag.
• Supports GitHub and GitLab providers via the --provider flag.
• Automatically creates missing destination directories.

How to Use

Prerequisites

• Rust: Make sure you have Rust installed. You can download it from rust-lang.org. (Cargo is included with the Rust installation.)
• Git: Ensure that Git is installed and available in your system's PATH.

Building the Tool

1. Clone or download the source code for clonetool.

2. Navigate to the root directory of the project (where Cargo.toml is located).

3. Build the tool using Cargo:

   cargo build --release

   This will create an optimized version of the tool located in the target/release directory.

Running the Tool

The basic usage of clonetool is:

clonetool -u <usernames> -d <destination_directory> [options]

Key Arguments and Options:

• -u, --users <usernames>: A comma-separated list of GitHub or GitLab usernames or organization names.
• -d, --destination <destination_directory>: The local directory to clone repositories into.
• --debug: Enables debug output, showing executed git commands.
• -p, --pull: Pulls updates (git pull) for all branches of repositories in the specified destination directory.
• -x, --exclude <packages>: A comma-separated list of repositories to exclude, in the form user/package.
• --provider <provider>: Specifies the provider (github or gitlab). Defaults to github.

Examples

1. Clone all repositories for a user from GitHub to the /home/user/repos directory:

   clonetool -u testuser -d /home/user/repos

   This will create a directory called testuser inside the repos directory and clone all repositories inside.

2. Clone all repositories for multiple users from GitHub:

   clonetool -u user1,user2,org -d /mnt/data/repos

   This will create directories user1, user2, and org inside /mnt/data/repos, with each user's repositories cloned inside their respective directories.

3. Pull updates for existing repositories:

   clonetool -u testuser -d /home/user/repos --pull

   This will traverse the /home/user/repos/testuser directory and run git pull for all branches of each repository.

4. Clone repositories while excluding specific repositories:

   clonetool -u testuser -d /home/user/repos -x testuser/repo1,testuser/repo2

   This will clone all repositories from testuser, except repo1 and repo2.

5. Clone repositories from GitLab:

   clonetool -u testuser -d /home/user/repos --provider gitlab

   This will clone all repositories for testuser from GitLab.

6. Pull updates for multiple users:

   clonetool -u user1,user2,org -d /mnt/data/repos --pull

   This will pull updates for repositories inside /mnt/data/repos/user1, /mnt/data/repos/user2, and /mnt/data/repos/org.

Notes

• When using --pull, the tool assumes the repositories already exist in the destination directory.
• The tool supports both GitHub and GitLab APIs for fetching repository lists.
• The program will create the specified destination directory if it does not exist.
• Usernames/organization names must only contain alphanumeric characters, underscores, or hyphens.
• The --exclude flag requires repository names in the format user/repository.

License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License. The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file.

Acknowledgment

This tool was created with the assistance of ChatGPT 4o and Google Gemini 2.0 Flash.