Re: resumable git clone

So don't try to get it to send the rest of packfile; you want a smaller packfile anyway, with the rest of the *objects* in it. The tricky part is to convince the damn thing that you do have such-and-such objects already; AFAICS, normally it goes by _references_, not by actual availability of objects. Which is a bloody annoyance in its own right - the first push after the merge window goes like this:

Linus' repository has everything up to v4.5-rc1
kernel.org vfs.git has it in alternates and its refs cover everything up to v4.4
local mirror of Linus' repository has everything up to v4.5-rc1
local vfs.git has that in its alternates and remotes and kernel.org vfs.git in remotes

git checkout for-linus
git merge origin
<edit, test, commit, etc.>
git push vfs for-linus

... and settle down for quite a bit of waiting, since it will push *everything* in range from v4.4 to v4.5-rc1 into kernel.org vfs.git, even though the damn thing _has_ all those objects available via alternates. Back when kernel.org trees came with shell access, ssh over there and git remote update origin from vfs.git prior to the push used to reduce the traffic by several orders of magnitude; no such thing these days...