git-annex - manage files with git, without checking their contents
in
git annex command [params ...]
git-annex allows managing files with git, without checking the
file contents into git. While that may seem paradoxical, it is useful when
dealing with files larger than git can currently easily handle, whether due
to limitations in memory, checksumming time, or disk space.
Even without file content tracking, being able to manage files
with git, move files around and delete files with versioned directory trees,
and use branches and distributed clones, are all very handy reasons to use
git. And annexed files can co-exist in the same git repository with
regularly versioned files, which is convenient for maintaining documents,
Makefiles, etc that are associated with annexed files but that benefit from
full revision control.
When a file is annexed, its content is moved into a key-value
store, and a symlink is made that points to the content. These symlinks are
checked into git and versioned like regular files. You can move them around,
delete them, and so on. Pushing to another git repository will make
git-annex there aware of the annexed file, and it can be used to retrieve
its content from the key-value store.
# git annex get video/hackity_hack_and_kaxxt.mov
get video/hackity_hack_and_kaxxt.mov (not available)
I was unable to access these remotes: server
Try making some of these repositories available:
5863d8c0-d9a9-11df-adb2-af51e6559a49 -- my home file server
58d84e8a-d9ae-11df-a1aa-ab9aa8c00826 -- portable USB drive
ca20064c-dbb5-11df-b2fe-002170d25c55 -- backup SATA drive
failed
# sudo mount /media/usb
# git remote add usbdrive /media/usb
# git annex get video/hackity_hack_and_kaxxt.mov
get video/hackity_hack_and_kaxxt.mov (from usbdrive...) ok
# git annex add iso
add iso/Debian_5.0.iso ok
# git annex drop iso/Debian_4.0.iso
drop iso/Debian_4.0.iso ok
# git annex move iso --to=usbdrive
move iso/Debian_5.0.iso (moving to usbdrive...) ok
Like many git commands, git-annex can be passed a path that is
either a file or a directory. In the latter case it acts on all relevant
files in the directory. When no path is specified, most git-annex commands
default to acting on all relevant files in the current directory (and
subdirectories).
- help
- Display built-in help.
- For help on a specific command, use git annex help command
- add [path ...]
- Adds files in the path to the annex. If no path is specified, adds files
from the current directory and below.
- See git-annex-add(1) for details.
- get [path ...]
- Makes the content of annexed files available in this repository.
- See git-annex-get(1) for details.
- drop [path
...]
- Drops the content of annexed files from this repository.
- See git-annex-drop(1) for details.
- move [path ...]
[--from=remote|--to=remote]
- Moves the content of files from or to another remote.
- See git-annex-move(1) for details.
- copy [path ...]
[--from=remote|--to=remote]
- Copies the content of files from or to another remote.
- See git-annex-copy(1) for details.
- status [path
...]
- Similar to git status --short, displays the status of the files in
the working tree. Particularly useful in direct mode.
- See git-annex-status(1) for details.
- unlock [path
...]
- Unlock annexed files for modification.
- See git-annex-unlock(1) for details.
- edit [path
...]
- This is an alias for the unlock command. May be easier to remember, if you
think of this as allowing you to edit an annexed file.
- lock [path
...]
- Use this to undo an unlock command if you don't want to modify the files,
or have made modifications you want to discard.
- See git-annex-lock(1) for details.
- sync [remote
...]
- Synchronize local repository with remotes.
- See git-annex-sync(1) for details.
- mirror [path ...]
[--to=remote|--from=remote]
- Mirror content of files to/from another repository.
- See git-annex-mirror(1) for details.
- addurl [url
...]
- Downloads each url to its own file, which is added to the annex.
- See git-annex-addurl(1) for details.
- rmurl file
url
- Record that the file is no longer available at the url.
- See git-annex-rmurl(1) for details.
- import [path
...]
- Move and add files from outside git working copy into the annex.
- See git-annex-import(1) for details.
- importfeed [url
...]
- Imports the contents of podcast feeds into the annex.
- See git-annex-importfeed(1) for details.
- export treeish --to
remote
- Export content to a remote.
- See git-annex-export(1) for details.
- undo [filename|directory]
...
- Undo last change to a file or directory.
- See git-annex-undo(1) for details.
- multicast
- Multicast file distribution.
- See git-annex-multicast(1) for details.
- watch
- Watch for changes and autocommit.
- See git-annex-watch(1) for details.
- assistant
- Automatically sync folders between devices.
- See git-annex-assistant(1) for details.
- webapp
- Opens a web app, that allows easy setup of a git-annex repository, and
control of the git-annex assistant. If the assistant is not already
running, it will be started.
- See git-annex-webapp(1) for details.
- init
[description]
- Until a repository (or one of its remotes) has been initialized, git-annex
will refuse to operate on it, to avoid accidentally using it in a
repository that was not intended to have an annex.
- See git-annex-init(1) for details.
- describe repository
description
- Changes the description of a repository.
- See git-annex-describe(1) for details.
- initremote name
type=value [param=value ...]
- Creates a new special remote, and adds it to .git/config.
- See git-annex-initremote(1) for details.
- enableremote
name [param=value ...]
- Enables use of an existing special remote in the current repository.
- See git-annex-enableremote(1) for details.
- enable-tor
- Sets up tor hidden service.
- See git-annex-enable-tor(1) for details.
- numcopies
[N]
- Configure desired number of copies.
- See git-annex-numcopies(1) for details.
- trust [repository
...]
- Records that a repository is trusted to not unexpectedly lose content. Use
with care.
- See git-annex-trust(1) for details.
- untrust [repository
...]
- Records that a repository is not trusted and could lose content at any
time.
- See git-annex-untrust(1) for details.
- semitrust
[repository ...]
- Returns a repository to the default semi trusted state.
- See git-annex-semitrust(1) for details.
- group repository
groupname
- Add a repository to a group.
- See git-annex-group(1) for details.
- ungroup repository
groupname
- Removes a repository from a group.
- See git-annex-ungroup(1) for details.
- wanted repository
[expression]
- Get or set preferred content expression.
- See git-annex-wanted(1) for details.
- groupwanted
groupname [expression]
- Get or set groupwanted expression.
- See git-annex-groupwanted(1) for details.
- required repository
[expression]
- Get or set required content expression.
- See git-annex-required(1) for details.
- schedule repository
[expression]
- Get or set scheduled jobs.
- See git-annex-schedule(1) for details.
- config
- Get and set other configuration stored in git-annex branch.
- See git-annex-config(1) for details.
- vicfg
- Opens EDITOR on a temp file containing most of the above configuration
settings, as well as a few others, and when it exits, stores any changes
made back to the git-annex branch.
- See git-annex-vicfg(1) for details.
- direct
- Switches a repository to use direct mode, where rather than symlinks to
files, the files are directly present in the repository.
- See git-annex-direct(1) for details.
- indirect
- Switches a repository back from direct mode to the default, indirect
mode.
- See git-annex-indirect(1) for details.
- adjust
- Switches a repository to use an adjusted branch, which can automatically
unlock all files, etc.
- See git-annex-adjust(1) for details.
- test
- This runs git-annex's built-in test suite.
- See git-annex-test(1) for details.
- testremote
remote
- This tests a remote by generating some random objects and sending them to
the remote, then redownloading them, removing them from the remote,
etc.
- It's safe to run in an existing repository (the repository contents are
not altered), although it may perform expensive data transfers.
- See git-annex-testremote(1) for details.
- fuzztest
- Generates random changes to files in the current repository, for use in
testing the assistant.
- See git-annex-fuzztest(1) for details.
- benchmark
- This runs git-annex's built-in benchmarks, if it was built with
benchmarking support.
- See git-annex-benchmark(1) for details.
These common options are accepted by all git-annex commands, and
may not be explicitly listed on their individual man pages. (Many commands
also accept the git-annex-matching-options(1).)
- --force
- Force unsafe actions, such as dropping a file's content when no other
source of it can be verified to still exist, or adding ignored files. Use
with care.
- --fast
- Enable less expensive, but also less thorough versions of some commands.
What is avoided depends on the command.
- --quiet
- Avoid the default verbose display of what is done; only show errors.
- --verbose
- Enable verbose display.
- --debug
- Show debug messages.
- --no-debug
- Disable debug messages.
- --numcopies=n
- Overrides the numcopies setting, forcing git-annex to ensure the specified
number of copies exist.
- Note that setting numcopies to 0 is very unsafe.
- --time-limit=time
- Limits how long a git-annex command runs. The time can be something like
"5h", or "30m" or even "45s" or
"10d".
- Note that git-annex may continue running a little past the specified time
limit, in order to finish processing a file.
- Also, note that if the time limit prevents git-annex from doing all it was
asked to, it will exit with a special code, 101.
- --trust=repository
- --semitrust=repository
- --untrust=repository
- Overrides trust settings for a repository. May be specified more than
once.
- The repository should be specified using the name of a configured remote,
or the UUID or description of a repository.
- --trust-glacier-inventory
- Amazon Glacier inventories take hours to retrieve, and may not represent
the current state of a repository. So git-annex does not trust that files
that the inventory claims are in Glacier are really there. This switch can
be used to allow it to trust the inventory.
- Be careful using this, especially if you or someone else might have
recently removed a file from Glacier. If you try to drop the only other
copy of the file, and this switch is enabled, you could lose data!
- --backend=name
- Specifies which key-value backend to use. This can be used when adding a
file to the annex, or migrating a file. Once files are in the annex, their
backend is known and this option is not necessary.
- --user-agent=value
- Overrides the User-Agent to use when downloading files from the web.
- --notify-finish
- Caused a desktop notification to be displayed after each successful file
download and upload.
- (Only supported on some platforms, e.g. Linux with dbus. A no-op when not
supported.)
- --notify-start
- Caused a desktop notification to be displayed when a file upload or
download has started, or when a file is dropped.
- -c name=value
- Overrides git configuration settings. May be specified multiple
times.
Like other git commands, git-annex is configured via
.git/config. Here are all the supported configuration settings.
- annex.uuid
- A unique UUID for this repository (automatically set).
- annex.backend
- Name of the default key-value backend to use when adding new files to the
repository.
- This is overridden by annex annex.backend configuration in the
.gitattributes files, and by the --backend option.
- (This used to be named annex.backends, and that will still be used
if set.)
- annex.securehashesonly
- Set to true to indicate that the repository should only use
cryptographically secure hashes (SHA2, SHA3) and not insecure hashes (MD5,
SHA1) for content.
When this is set, the contents of files using cryptographically
insecure hashes will not be allowed to be added to the repository.
Also, git-annex fsck will complain about any files present in the
repository that use insecure hashes.
To configure the behavior in new clones of the repository, this
can be set in git-annex-config.
- annex.maxextensionlength
- Maximum length of what is considered a filename extension when adding a
file to a backend that preserves filename extensions. The default length
is 4, which allows extensions like "jpeg". The dot before the
extension is not counted part of its length.
- annex.diskreserve
- Amount of disk space to reserve. Disk space is checked when transferring
content to avoid running out, and additional free space can be reserved
via this option, to make space for more important content (such as git
commit logs). Can be specified with any commonly used units, for example,
"0.5 gb", "500M", or "100 KiloBytes"
- The default reserve is 1 megabyte.
- annex.largefiles
- Used to configure which files are large enough to be added to the annex.
Default: All files.
- Overrides any annex.largefiles attributes in .gitattributes
files.
- See <https://git-annex.branchable.com/tips/largefiles> for
details.
- annex.addsmallfiles
- Controls whether small files (not matching annex.largefiles) should be
checked into git by git annex add. Defaults to true; set to false
to instead make small files be skipped.
- annex.addunlocked
- Set to true to make commands like git-annex add that add files to
the repository add them in unlocked form. The default is to add files in
locked form. This only has effect in v7 repositories.
- When a repository has core.symlinks set to false, it implicitly sets
annex.addunlocked to true.
- annex.numcopies
- This is a deprecated setting. You should instead use the git annex
numcopies command to configure how many copies of files are kept
across all repositories, or the annex.numcopies .gitattributes
setting.
- This config setting is only looked at when git annex numcopies has
never been configured, and when there's no annex.numcopies setting in the
.gitattributes file.
- Note that setting numcopies to 0 is very unsafe.
- annex.genmetadata
- Set this to true to make git-annex automatically generate some
metadata when adding files to the repository.
- In particular, it stores year, month, and day metadata, from the file's
modification date.
- When importfeed is used, it stores additional metadata from the feed, such
as the author, title, etc.
- annex.used-refspec
- This controls which refs git-annex unused considers to be used. See
REFSPEC FORMAT in git-annex-unused(1) for details.
- annex.jobs
- Configure the number of concurrent jobs to run. Default is 1.
- Only git-annex commands that support the --jobs option will use this.
- annex.queuesize
- git-annex builds a queue of git commands, in order to combine similar
commands for speed. By default the size of the queue is limited to 10240
commands; this can be used to change the size. If you have plenty of
memory and are working with very large numbers of files, increasing the
queue size can speed it up.
- annex.bloomcapacity
- The git annex unused and git annex sync --content commands
use a bloom filter to determine what files are present in eg, the work
tree. The default bloom filter is sized to handle up to 500000 files. If
your repository is larger than that, you should increase this value.
Larger values will make git-annex unused and git annex sync
--content consume more memory; run git annex info for memory
usage numbers.
- annex.bloomaccuracy
- Adjusts the accuracy of the bloom filter used by git annex unused
and git annex sync --content. The default accuracy is 10000000 -- 1
unused file out of 10000000 will be missed by git annex unused.
Increasing the accuracy will make git annex unused consume more
memory; run git annex info for memory usage numbers.
- annex.sshcaching
- By default, git-annex caches ssh connections using ssh's ControlMaster and
ControlPersist settings (if built using a new enough ssh). To disable
this, set to false.
- annex.alwayscommit
- By default, git-annex automatically commits data to the git-annex branch
after each command is run. If you have a series of commands that you want
to make a single commit, you can run the commands with -c
annex.alwayscommit=false. You can later commit the data by running
git annex merge (or by automatic merges) or git annex
sync.
- You should beware running git gc when using this configuration,
since it could garbage collect objects that are staged in git-annex's
index but not yet committed.
- annex.commitmessage
- When git-annex updates the git-annex branch, it usually makes up its own
commit message ("update"), since users rarely look at or care
about changes to that branch. If you do care, you can specify this setting
by running commands with -c annex.commitmessage=whatever
- This works well in combination with annex.alwayscommit=false, to gather up
a set of changes and commit them with a message you specify.
- annex.merge-annex-branches
- By default, git-annex branches that have been pulled from remotes are
automatically merged into the local git-annex branch, so that git-annex
has the most up-to-date possible knowledge.
- To avoid that merging, set this to "false". This can be useful
particularly when you don't have write permission to the repository.
- annex.hardlink
- Set this to true to make file contents be hard linked between the
repository and its remotes when possible, instead of a more expensive
copy.
- Use with caution -- This can invalidate numcopies counting, since with
hard links, fewer copies of a file can exist. So, it is a good idea to
mark a repository using this setting as untrusted.
- When a repository is set up using git clone --shared, git-annex
init will automatically set annex.hardlink and mark the repository as
untrusted.
- annex.thin
- Set this to true to make unlocked files be a hard link to their
content in the annex, rather than a second copy. This can save
considerable disk space, but when a modification is made to a file, you
will lose the local (and possibly only) copy of the old version. So,
enable with care.
- After setting (or unsetting) this, you should run git annex fix to
fix up the annexed files in the work tree to be hard links (or
copies).
- Note that this has no effect when the filesystem does not support hard
links. And when multiple files in the work tree have the same content,
only one of them gets hard linked to the annex.
- annex.delayadd
- Makes the watch and assistant commands delay for the specified number of
seconds before adding a newly created file to the annex. Normally this is
not needed, because they already wait for all writers of the file to close
it. On Mac OSX, when not using direct mode this defaults to 1 second, to
work around a bad interaction with software there.
- annex.expireunused
- Controls what the assistant does about unused file contents that are
stored in the repository.
- The default is false, which causes all old and unused file contents
to be retained, unless the assistant is able to move them to some other
repository (such as a backup repository).
- Can be set to a time specification, like "7d" or "1m",
and then file contents that have been known to be unused for a week or a
month will be deleted.
- annex.fscknudge
- When set to false, prevents the webapp from reminding you when using
repositories that lack consistency checks.
- annex.autoupgrade
- When set to ask (the default), the webapp will check for new versions and
prompt if they should be upgraded to. When set to true, automatically
upgrades without prompting (on some supported platforms). When set to
false, disables any upgrade checking.
- Note that upgrade checking is only done when git-annex is installed from
one of the prebuilt images from its website. This does not bypass e.g., a
Linux distribution's own upgrade handling code.
- This setting also controls whether to restart the git-annex assistant when
the git-annex binary is detected to have changed. That is useful no matter
how you installed git-annex.
- annex.autocommit
- Set to false to prevent the git-annex assistant and git-annex sync from
automatically committing changes to files in the repository.
- To configure the behavior in all clones of the repository, this can be set
in git-annex-config.
- annex.resolvemerge
- Set to false to prevent merge conflicts in the checked out branch being
automatically resolved by the git-annex assitant, git-annex sync,
git-annex merge, and the git-annex post-receive hook.
- To configure the behavior in all clones of the repository, this can be set
in git-annex-config.
- annex.synccontent
- Set to true to make git-annex sync default to syncing content.
- To configure the behavior in all clones of the repository, this can be set
in git-annex-config.
- annex.startupscan
- Set to false to prevent the git-annex assistant from scanning the
repository for new and changed files on startup. This will prevent it from
noticing changes that were made while it was not running, but can be a
useful performance tweak for a large repository.
- annex.listen
- Configures which address the webapp listens on. The default is localhost.
Can be either an IP address, or a hostname that resolves to the desired
address.
- annex.debug
- Set to true to enable debug logging by default.
- annex.version
- Automatically maintained, and used to automate upgrades between
versions.
- annex.direct
- Set to true when the repository is in direct mode. Should not be set
manually; use the "git annex direct" and "git annex
indirect" commands instead.
- annex.crippledfilesystem
- Set to true if the repository is on a crippled filesystem, such as FAT,
which does not support symbolic links, or hard links, or unix permissions.
This is automatically probed by "git annex init".
- annex.pidlock
- Normally, git-annex uses fine-grained lock files to allow multiple
processes to run concurrently without getting in each others' way. That
works great, unless you are using git-annex on a filesystem that does not
support POSIX fcntl locks. This is sometimes the case when using NFS or
Lustre filesystems.
- To support such situations, you can set annex.pidlock to true, and it will
fall back to a single top-level pid file lock.
- Although, often, you'd really be better off fixing your networked
filesystem configuration to support POSIX locks.. And, some networked
filesystems are so inconsistent that one node can't reliably tell when the
other node is holding a pid lock. Caveat emptor.
- annex.pidlocktimeout
- When using pid lock files, it's possible for a stale lock file to get left
behind by previous run of git-annex that crashed or was interrupted. This
is mostly avoided, but can occur especially when using a network file
system.
- git-annex will wait up to this many seconds for the pid lock file to go
away, and will then abort if it cannot continue. Default: 300
- annex.cachecreds
- When "true" (the default), git-annex will cache credentials used
to access special remotes in files in .git/annex/creds/ that only you can
read. To disable that caching, set to "false", and credentials
will only be read from the environment, or if they have been embedded in
encrypted form in the git repository, will be extracted and decrypted each
time git-annex needs to access the remote.
- remote.<name>.annex-cost
- When determining which repository to transfer annexed files from or to,
ones with lower costs are preferred. The default cost is 100 for local
repositories, and 200 for remote repositories.
- remote.<name>.annex-cost-command
- If set, the command is run, and the number it outputs is used as the cost.
This allows varying the cost based on e.g., the current network.
- remote.<name>.annex-start-command
- A command to run when git-annex begins to use the remote. This can be used
to, for example, mount the directory containing the remote.
- The command may be run repeatedly when multiple git-annex processes are
running concurrently.
- remote.<name>.annex-stop-command
- A command to run when git-annex is done using the remote.
- The command will only be run once *all* running git-annex processes are
finished using the remote.
- remote.<name>.annex-shell
- Specify an alternative git-annex-shell executable on the remote instead of
looking for "git-annex-shell" on the PATH.
- This is useful if the git-annex-shell program is outside the PATH or has a
non-standard name.
- remote.<name>.annex-ignore
- If set to true, prevents git-annex from storing file contents on
this remote by default. (You can still request it be used by the
--from and --to options.)
- This is, for example, useful if the remote is located somewhere without
git-annex-shell. (For example, if it's on GitHub). Or, it could be used if
the network connection between two repositories is too slow to be used
normally.
- This does not prevent git-annex sync (or the git-annex assistant) from
syncing the git repository to the remote.
- remote.<name>.annex-ignore-command
- If set, the command is run, and if it exits nonzero, that's the same as
setting annex-ignore to true. This allows controlling behavior based on
e.g., the current network.
- remote.<name>.annex-sync
- If set to false, prevents git-annex sync (and the git-annex
assistant) from syncing with this remote by default. However, git annex
sync <name> can still be used to sync with the remote.
- remote.<name>.annex-sync-command
- If set, the command is run, and if it exits nonzero, that's the same as
setting annex-sync to false. This allows controlling behavior based on
e.g., the current network.
- remote.<name>.annex-pull
- If set to false, prevents git-annex sync (and the git-annex
assistant etc) from ever pulling (or fetching) from the remote.
- remote.<name>.annex-push
- If set to false, prevents git-annex sync (and the git-annex
assistant etc) from ever pushing to the remote.
- remote.<name>.annex-readonly
- If set to true, prevents git-annex from making changes to a remote.
This both prevents git-annex sync from pushing changes, and prevents
storing or removing files from read-only remote.
- remote.<name>.annex-verify,
annex.verify
- By default, git-annex will verify the checksums of objects downloaded from
remotes. If you trust a remote and don't want the overhead of these
checksums, you can set this to false.
- Note that even when this is set to false, git-annex does
verification in some edge cases, where it's likely the case than an object
was downloaded incorrectly, or when needed for security.
- remote.<name>.annex-export-tracking
- When set to a branch name or other treeish, this makes what's exported to
the special remote track changes to the branch. See git-annex-export(1).
git-annex sync --content and the git-annex assistant update exports
when changes have been committed to the tracking branch.
- remote.<name>.annexUrl
- Can be used to specify a different url than the regular
remote.<name>.url for git-annex to use when talking with the
remote. Similar to the pushUrl used by git-push.
- remote.<name>.annex-uuid
- git-annex caches UUIDs of remote repositories here.
- remote.<name>.annex-retry,
annex.retry
- Configure retries of failed transfers on a per-remote and general basis,
respectively. The value is the number of retries that can be made of the
same transfer. (default 0)
- remote.<name>.annex-retry-delay,
annex.retry-delay
- Number of seconds to delay before the first retry of a transfer. When
making multiple retries of the same transfer, the delay doubles after each
retry. (default 1)
- remote.<name>.annex-checkuuid
- This only affects remotes that have their url pointing to a directory on
the same system. git-annex normally checks the uuid of such remotes each
time it's run, which lets it transparently deal with different drives
being mounted to the location at different times.
- Setting annex-checkuuid to false will prevent it from checking the uuid at
startup (although the uuid is still verified before making any changes to
the remote repository). This may be useful to set to prevent unncessary
spin-up or automounting of a drive.
- remote.<name>.annex-trustlevel
- Configures a local trust level for the remote. This overrides the value
configured by the trust and untrust commands. The value can be any of
"trusted", "semitrusted" or
"untrusted".
- remote.<name>.annex-availability
- Can be used to tell git-annex whether a remote is LocallyAvailable or
GloballyAvailable. Normally, git-annex determines this automatically.
- remote.<name>.annex-speculate-present
- Set to "true" to make git-annex speculate that this remote may
contain the content of any file, even though its normal location tracking
does not indicate that it does. This will cause git-annex to try to get
all file contents from the remote. Can be useful in setting up a caching
remote.
- remote.<name>.annex-bare
- Can be used to tell git-annex if a remote is a bare repository or not.
Normally, git-annex determines this automatically.
- remote.<name>.annex-ssh-options
- Options to use when using ssh to talk to this remote.
- remote.<name>.annex-rsync-options
- Options to use when using rsync to or from this remote. For example, to
force IPv6, and limit the bandwidth to 100Kbyte/s, set it to -6
--bwlimit 100
- Note that git-annex-shell has a whitelist of allowed rsync options, and
others will not be be passed to the remote rsync. So using some options
may break the communication between the local and remote rsyncs.
- remote.<name>.annex-rsync-upload-options
- Options to use when using rsync to upload a file to a remote.
- These options are passed after other applicable rsync options, so can be
used to override them. For example, to limit upload bandwidth to
10Kbyte/s, set --bwlimit 10.
- remote.<name>.annex-rsync-download-options
- Options to use when using rsync to download a file from a remote.
- These options are passed after other applicable rsync options, so can be
used to override them.
- remote.<name>.annex-rsync-transport
- The remote shell to use to connect to the rsync remote. Possible values
are ssh (the default) and rsh, together with their
arguments, for instance ssh -p 2222 -c blowfish; Note that the
remote hostname should not appear there, see rsync(1) for details. When
the transport used is ssh, connections are automatically cached
unless annex.sshcaching is unset.
- remote.<name>.annex-bup-split-options
- Options to pass to bup split when storing content in this remote. For
example, to limit the bandwidth to 100Kbyte/s, set it to --bwlimit
100k (There is no corresponding option for bup join.)
- remote.<name>.annex-gnupg-options
- Options to pass to GnuPG when it's encrypting data. For instance, to use
the AES cipher with a 256 bits key and disable compression, set it to
--cipher-algo AES256 --compress-algo none. (These options take
precedence over the default GnuPG configuration, which is otherwise
used.)
- remote.<name>.annex-gnupg-decrypt-options
- Options to pass to GnuPG when it's decrypting data. (These options take
precedence over the default GnuPG configuration, which is otherwise
used.)
- annex.ssh-options,
annex.rsync-options,
- annex.rsync-upload-options, annex.rsync-download-options,
annex.bup-split-options, annex.gnupg-options,
annex.gnupg-decrypt-options
- Default options to use if a remote does not have more specific options as
described above.
- annex.web-options
- Options to pass to curl when git-annex uses it to download urls (rather
than the default built-in url downloader).
- For example, to force IPv4 only, set it to "-4". Or to make curl
use your ~/.netrc file, set it to "--netrc".
- Setting this option makes git-annex use curl, but only when
annex.security.allowed-http-addresses is configured in a specific way. See
its documentation.
- annex.youtube-dl-options
- Options to pass to youtube-dl when using it to find the url to download
for a video.
- Some options may break git-annex's integration with youtube-dl. For
example, the --output option could cause it to store files somewhere
git-annex won't find them. Avoid setting here or in the youtube-dl config
file any options that cause youtube-dl to download more than one file, or
to store the file anywhere other than the current working directory.
- annex.aria-torrent-options
- Options to pass to aria2c when using it to download a torrent.
- annex.http-headers
- HTTP headers to send when downloading from the web. Multiple lines of this
option can be set, one per header.
- annex.http-headers-command
- If set, the command is run and each line of its output is used as a HTTP
header. This overrides annex.http-headers.
- annex.security.allowed-url-schemes
- List of URL schemes that git-annex is allowed to download content from.
The default is "http https ftp".
- Think very carefully before changing this; there are security
implications. For example, if it's changed to allow "file" URLs,
then anyone who can get a commit into your git-annex repository could
git-annex addurl a pointer to a private file located outside that
repository, possibly causing it to be copied into your repository and
transferred on to other remotes, exposing its content.
- Some special remotes support their own domain-specific URL schemes; those
are not affected by this configuration setting.
- annex.security.allowed-http-addresses
- By default, git-annex only makes HTTP connections to public IP addresses;
it will refuse to use HTTP servers on localhost or on a private
network.
- This setting can override that behavior, allowing access to particular IP
addresses. For example "127.0.0.1 ::1" allows access to
localhost (both IPV4 and IPV6). To allow access to all IP addresses, use
"all"
- Think very carefully before changing this; there are security
implications. Anyone who can get a commit into your git-annex repository
could git annex addurl an url on a private http server, possibly
causing it to be downloaded into your repository and transferred to other
remotes, exposing its content.
- Note that, since the interfaces of curl and youtube-dl do not allow these
IP address restrictions to be enforced, curl and youtube-dl will never be
used unless annex.security.allowed-http-addresses=all.
- annex.security.allow-unverified-downloads
- For security reasons, git-annex refuses to download content from most
special remotes when it cannot check a hash to verify that the correct
content was downloaded. This particularly impacts downloading the content
of URL or WORM keys, which lack hashes.
- The best way to avoid problems due to this is to migrate files away from
such keys, before their content reaches a special remote. See
git-annex-migrate(1).
- When the content is only available from a special remote, you can use this
configuration to force git-annex to download it. But you do so at your own
risk, and it's very important you read and understand the information
below first!
- Downloading unverified content from encrypted special remotes is
prevented, because the special remote could send some other encrypted
content than what you expect, causing git-annex to decrypt data that you
never checked into git-annex, and risking exposing the decrypted data to
any non-encrypted remotes you send content to.
- Downloading unverified content from (non-encrypted) external special
remotes is prevented, because they could follow http redirects to web
servers on localhost or on a private network, or in some cases to a
file:/// url.
- If you decide to bypass this security check, the best thing to do is to
only set it temporarily while running the command that gets the file. The
value to set the config to is "ACKTHPPT". For example:
-
git -c annex.security.allow-unverified-downloads=ACKTHPPT annex get
myfile
- It would be a good idea to check that it downloaded the file you expected,
too.
- remote.name.annex-security-allow-unverified-downloads
- Per-remote configuration of
annex.security.allow-unverified-downloads.
- annex.secure-erase-command
- This can be set to a command that should be run whenever git-annex removes
the content of a file from the repository.
- In the command line, %file is replaced with the file that should be
erased.
- For example, to use the wipe command, set it to wipe -f %file.
- remote.<name>.rsyncurl
- Used by rsync special remotes, this configures the location of the rsync
repository to use. Normally this is automatically set up by git annex
initremote, but you can change it if needed.
- remote.<name>.buprepo
- Used by bup special remotes, this configures the location of the bup
repository to use. Normally this is automatically set up by git annex
initremote, but you can change it if needed.
- remote.<name>.ddarrepo
- Used by ddar special remotes, this configures the location of the ddar
repository to use. Normally this is automatically set up by git annex
initremote, but you can change it if needed.
- remote.<name>.directory
- Used by directory special remotes, this configures the location of the
directory where annexed files are stored for this remote. Normally this is
automatically set up by git annex initremote, but you can change it
if needed.
- remote.<name>.adb
- Used to identify remotes on Android devices accessed via adb. Normally
this is automatically set up by git annex initremote.
- remote.<name>.androiddirectory
- Used by adb special remotes, this is the directory on the Android device
where files are stored for this remote. Normally this is automatically set
up by git annex initremote, but you can change it if needed.
- remote.<name>.androidserial
- Used by adb special remotes, this is the serial number of the Android
device used by the remote. Normally this is automatically set up by git
annex initremote, but you can change it if needed, eg when upgrading
to a new Android device.
- remote.<name>.s3
- Used to identify Amazon S3 special remotes. Normally this is automatically
set up by git annex initremote.
- remote.<name>.glacier
- Used to identify Amazon Glacier special remotes. Normally this is
automatically set up by git annex initremote.
- remote.<name>.webdav
- Used to identify webdav special remotes. Normally this is automatically
set up by git annex initremote.
- remote.<name>.tahoe
- Used to identify tahoe special remotes. Points to the configuration
directory for tahoe.
- remote.<name>.gcrypt
- Used to identify gcrypt special remotes. Normally this is automatically
set up by git annex initremote.
- It is set to "true" if this is a gcrypt remote. If the gcrypt
remote is accessible over ssh and has git-annex-shell available to manage
it, it's set to "shell".
- remote.<name>.hooktype,
remote.<name>.externaltype
- Used by hook special remotes and external special remotes to record the
type of the remote.
- annex.tune.objecthash1,
annex.tune.objecthashlower, annex.tune.branchhash1
- These can be passed to git annex init to tune the repository. They
cannot be safely changed in a running repository and should never be set
in global git configuration. For details, see
<https://git-annex.branchable.com/tuning/>.
The key-value backend used when adding a new file to the annex can
be configured on a per-file-type basis via .gitattributes files. In
the file, the annex.backend attribute can be set to the name of the
backend to use. For example, this here's how to use the WORM backend by
default, but the SHA256E backend for ogg files:
* annex.backend=WORM
*.ogg annex.backend=SHA256E
There is a annex.largefiles attribute; which is used to configure
which files are large enough to be added to the annex. See
<https://git-annex.branchable.com/tips/largefiles> for details.
The numcopies setting can also be configured on a per-file-type
basis via the annex.numcopies attribute in .gitattributes
files. This overrides other numcopies settings. For example, this makes two
copies be needed for wav files and 3 copies for flac files:
*.wav annex.numcopies=2
*.flac annex.numcopies=3
Note that setting numcopies to 0 is very unsafe.
These settings are honored by git-annex whenever it's operating on
a matching file. However, when using --all, --unused, or --key to specify
keys to operate on, git-annex is operating on keys and not files, so will
not honor the settings from .gitattributes. For this reason, the git annex
numcopies command is useful to configure a global default for numcopies.
Also note that when using views, only the toplevel .gitattributes
file is preserved in the view, so other settings in other files won't have
any effect.
git-annex, when called as a git subcommand, may return exit codes
0 or 1 for success or failures, or, more rarely, 127 or 128 for certain very
specific failures. git-annex itself should return 0 on success and 1 on
failure, unless the --time-limit=time option is hit, in which case it
returns with exit code 101.
These environment variables are used by git-annex when set:
- GIT_WORK_TREE,
GIT_DIR
- Handled the same as they are by git, see git(1)
- GIT_SSH,
GIT_SSH_COMMAND
- Handled similarly to the same as described in git(1). The one difference
is that git-annex will sometimes pass an additional "-n"
parameter to these, as the first parameter, to prevent ssh from reading
from stdin. Since that can break existing uses of these environment
variables that don't expect the extra parameter, you will need to set
GIT_ANNEX_USE_GIT_SSH=1 to make git-annex support these.
- Note that setting either of these environment variables prevents git-annex
from automatically enabling ssh connection caching (see
annex.sshcaching), so it will slow down some operations with
remotes over ssh. It's up to you to enable ssh connection caching if you
need it; see ssh's documentation.
- Also, annex.ssh-options and
remote.<name>.annex-ssh-options won't have any effect when
these envionment variables are set.
- Usually it's better to configure any desired options through your
~/.ssh/config file, or by setting annex.ssh-options.
- GIT_ANNEX_VECTOR_CLOCK
- Normally git-annex timestamps lines in the log files committed to the
git-annex branch. Setting this environment variable to a number will make
git-annex use that rather than the current number of seconds since the
UNIX epoch. Note that decimal seconds are supported.
- This is only provided for advanced users who either have a better way to
tell which commit is current than the local clock, or who need to avoid
embedding timestamps for policy reasons. Misuse of this environment
variable can confuse git-annex's book-keeping, sometimes in ways that
git annex fsck is unable to repair.
- Some special remotes use additional environment variables for
authentication etc. For example, AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and
GIT_ANNEX_P2P_AUTHTOKEN. See special remote documentation.
These files are used by git-annex:
.git/annex/objects/ in your git repository contains the
annexed file contents that are currently available. Annexed files in your
git repository symlink to that content.
.git/annex/ in your git repository contains other run-time
information used by git-annex.
~/.config/git-annex/autostart is a list of git repositories
to start the git-annex assistant in.
.git/hooks/pre-commit-annex in your git repository will be
run whenever a commit is made to the HEAD branch, either by git commit,
git-annex sync, or the git-annex assistant.
.git/hooks/post-update-annex in your git repository will be
run whenever the git-annex branch is updated. You can make this hook run
git update-server-info when publishing a git-annex repository by
http.
More git-annex documentation is available on its web site,
<https://git-annex.branchable.com/>
If git-annex is installed from a package, a copy of its
documentation should be included, in, for example,
/usr/share/doc/git-annex/.
Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>
<https://git-annex.branchable.com/>