Master Git No‑FF Merges, Remote Pushes, and Effective Branch Strategies

1. Using --no-ff for a regular merge

Git defaults to fast‑forward merges, which discard branch history after deletion. To preserve branch information, disable fast‑forward with git merge --no-ff, which creates a new merge commit.

Step‑by‑step workflow:

Create and switch to a dev branch:

Modify readme.txt on dev :

Commit the changes:

Switch back to master :

Merge with --no-ff and a message:

git merge --no-ff -m "merge with no-ff" dev

Running git log now shows a merge commit, preserving the branch history, unlike a fast‑forward merge which appears as a linear series of commits.

2. Pushing to a remote repository

After merging, push the changes to the remote server with git push. If you encounter the error “RPC failed; curl 52 Empty reply from server”, it is usually due to insufficient HTTP buffer size or unstable network.

Solutions:

Increase the HTTP post buffer: git config --global http.postBuffer 524288000 Disable compression: git config --global core.compression -1 Adjust trace settings (optional for debugging):

export GIT_TRACE_PACKET=1

export GIT_TRACE=1

export GIT_CURL_VERBOSE=1

These configurations can also speed up cloning operations.

Basic push syntax:

git push <remote> <local-branch>:<remote-branch>

git push --all origin

pushes all local branches; if the remote is ahead, Git will require a pull before pushing.

Use --force only when you are certain, as it overwrites remote history.

3. Branch management strategy

A practical workflow for team collaboration:

Master branch: always stable, used only for releases.

Dev branch: unstable development branch; when a version is ready, merge dev into master for release.

Feature branches: each developer works on their own branch off dev and periodically merges back into dev.

The overall branch diagram looks like this:

By using --no-ff merges, the history clearly shows when merges occurred, making it easier to trace changes compared to fast‑forward merges, which hide merge points.