I accidentally pushed my local master to a branch called origin on gitlab and now it is the default. Is there a way to rename this branch or set a new master branch to master?

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Best Answer


in the GitLab Enterprise Edition 12.2.0-pre you have to use following:SettingRepositoryDefault Branch ( expand it) and change the default branch Here

Setting the default branch in GitLab is a simple process that can be done in a few steps. By default, GitLab uses the 'master' branch as the default branch for new repositories. However, if you want to change the default branch to something else, you can easily do so.

To set the default branch in GitLab, first, navigate to your repository's settings. You can access the settings by clicking on the 'Settings' tab in your repository's menu.

Once you are in the settings page, scroll down until you find the 'Default branch' section. Here, you will see a dropdown menu that allows you to select the default branch for your repository.

Click on the dropdown menu and choose the branch that you want to set as the default. Once you have selected the branch, click on the 'Save changes' button to apply the changes.

After saving the changes, the selected branch will be set as the default branch for your GitLab repository. Any new branches created in the future will be based on this default branch.

In 8.0+ it looks like this was moved into the project. If you open your project and go to the gear icon on the right, then "Edit Project" you can set the default branch for the project.

To change default branch in GitLab:
1. Settings > General > General project settings > Expand
2. Default Branch > Change your project default branch
3. Save changes

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For gitlab v10+ (as of Sept 2018), this has moved to settings-> repository -> default branch

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As stated by @Luke this is still valid as on 4/1/2021

To change the default branch in Gitlab 7.7.2:

  • Click Settings in the left-hand bar
  • Change the Default Branch to the desired branch
  • Click Save Changes.

In Gitlab version v11.4.4-ee, you can:

  1. Setting
  2. Repository
  3. Default Branch

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  1. Settings
  2. General
  3. General Project Settings

Setting the default branch

In the latest GitLab Community Edition version 9.2.2.:

  1. You have to click on 'Settings' tab located at right most on tabspanel after opening the project.
  2. Under 'Settings' you will get section 'Default Branch' dropdownwhich will give you all branches for the repository. Select the desired branch.
  3. Scroll down to hit green colored 'Save changes' button located justafter 'Project Avatar'.

Please refer image below:

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See also GitLab 13.6 (November 2020)

Customize the initial branch name for new projects within a group

When creating a new Git repository, the first branch created is named master by default.

In coordination with the Git project, broader community, and other Git vendors, GitLab has been listening to the development community’s feedback on determining a more descriptive and inclusive name for the default branch, and is now offering users options to change the name of the default branch name for their repositories.

Previously, we shipped the ability to customize the initial branch name at the instance-level and as part of 13.6, GitLab now allows group administrators to configure the default branch name for new repositories created through the GitLab interface.

See Documentation and Issue.

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/uploads/2959ef65431bf4ffac659992360d6d8d/image.png


GitLab 13.9 (Feb 2021) details:

Git default branch name change

Every Git repository has an initial branch. It’s the first branch to be created automatically when you create a new repository.
By default, this initial branch is named master.

Git version 2.31.0 (scheduled for release March 15, 2021) will change the default branch name in Git from master to main.

In coordination with the Git project and the broader community, GitLab will be changing the default branch name for new projects on both our SaaS (GitLab.com) and self-managed offerings starting with GitLab 14.0.
This will not affect existing projects.

For more information, see the related epic and the Git mailing list discussion.

Deprecation date: Apr 22, 2021


As promise, with GitLab 13.11 (Apr. 2021):

Git default branch name change

Every Git repository has an initial branch.
It’s the first branch to be created automatically when you create a new repository.

By default, this initial branch is named master.
Future Git versions will change the default branch name in Git from master to main.

In coordination with the Git project and the broader community, GitLab will be changing the default branch name for new projects on both our SaaS (GitLab.com) and self-managed offerings starting with GitLab 14.0.
This will not affect existing projects.

GitLab has already introduced changes that allow users to change the default branch name both at the instance-level (for self-managed users) and at the group-level (for both SaaS and self-managed users).
We encourage users to make use of these features to set default branch names on new projects.

For more information, see the related epic and related blog post.

Settings > Repository > Default Branch

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First I needed to remote into my server with ssh. If someone has a non ssh way of doing this please post.

I found my bare repositories at

cd /var/opt/gitlab/git-data/repositories/group-name/project-name.git

used

git branch 

to see the wrong active branch

git symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/master

to change the master to to be the branch called master then use the web interface and "git branch" to confirm.

In Gitlab CE 9.0, You can change the default branch from the Settings Tab in a repository's header.

For GitLab 11.5.0-ee, go tohttps://gitlab.com/<username>/<project name>/settings/repository.

You should see:

Default Branch

Select the branch you want to set as the default for this project. All merge requests and commits will automatically be made against this branch unless you specify a different one.

Click Expand, select a branch, and click Save Changes.

December, 2022

settings >> repository >> Branch defaults :: expand and set your desire branch.