Default remote for git fetch

Question

If I am on a local branch that is not tracking any remote branch and I give the command

git fetch

Given I have several remotes defined

Answer 1

Here are some aliases which will give strings which can be used programatically:

branch-name = "symbolic-ref --short HEAD"  # https://stackoverflow.com/a/19585361/5353461
branch-remote-fetch = !"branch=$(git branch-name \"$1\") && git config branch.\"$branch\".remote || echo origin #"
branch-remote-push  = !"branch=$(git branch-name \"$1\") && git config branch.\"$branch\".pushRemote || git config remote.pushDefault || git branch-remote-fetch #"
branch-url-fetch = !"remote=$(git branch-remote-fetch \"$1\") && git remote get-url        \"$remote\" #"  # cognizant of insteadOf
branch-url-push  = !"remote=$(git branch-remote-push  \"$1\") && git remote get-url --push \"$remote\" #"  # cognizant of pushInsteadOf

If you want to find the remote for another branch, then replace branch-name above with the following with allow for a single argument to be passed:

branch-current = "symbolic-ref --short HEAD"  # https://stackoverflow.com/a/19585361/5353461
branch-names = !"[ -z \"$1\" ] && git branch-current 2>/dev/null || git branch --format='%(refname:short)' --contains \"${1:-HEAD}\" #"  # https://stackoverflow.com/a/19585361/5353461
branch-name = !"br=$(git branch-names \"$1\") && case \"$br\" in *$'\\n'*) printf \"Multiple branches:\\n%s\" \"$br\">&2; exit 1;; esac; echo \"$br\" #"

Answer 2

It will fetch of the origin remote. This is the frist remote you performed the GIT clone command on.

Answer 3

In your project folder, when you initialize git in the first step, .git folder is created.

Look into this folder for a file named config, it contains all the branch info. origin is used as the default.

  [remote "origin"]
      fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
      url = git@github.com:project.git

So the code is fetched from the url listed here.

Answer 4

If you have multiple remote repositories, and don't specify any remote repository name, origin will be used by default. If there is no remote repository named origin, then it will error out saying

fatal: No remote repository specified.  Please, specify either a URL or a
remote name from which new revisions should be fetched.

Additionally: How can I change this default remote without making the local branch tracking?

You can rename that repository name to 'origin' to make it default.

Careful: this won't work if the current branch already has an upstream specified on a different remote.
From git help fetch:

When no remote is specified, by default the origin remote will be used, unless there’s an upstream branch configured for the current branch.

In this case, you can change the upstream branches to use origin by editing the remote fields for branches configured in .git/config.