git-annex-sync - synchronize local repository with remotes
git annex sync [remote ...]
This command synchronizes the local repository with its
remotes.
The sync process involves first committing any local changes to
files that have previously been added to the repository, then fetching and
merging the current branch and the git-annex branch from the remote
repositories, and finally pushing the changes back to those branches on the
remote repositories. You can use standard git commands to do each of those
steps by hand, or if you don't want to worry about the details, you can use
sync.
The content of annexed objects is not synced by default, but the
--content option (see below) can make that also be synchronized.
When using git-annex, often remotes are not bare repositories,
because it's helpful to add remotes for nearby machines that you want to
access the same annexed content. Syncing with a non-bare remote will not
normally update the remote's current branch with changes from the local
repository. (Unless the remote is configured with
receive.denyCurrentBranch=updateInstead.)
To make working with such non-bare remotes easier, sync pushes not
only local master to remote master, but also to remote
synced/master (and similar with other branches). When git-annex
sync is later run on the remote, it will merge the synced/
branches that the repository has received.
Some special remotes contain a tree of files that can be imported
and/or exported, and syncing with these remotes behaves differently. See
git-annex-import(1) and git-annex-export(1) for details about how importing
and exporting work; syncing with such a remote is essentially an import
followed by an export. In many cases, importing needs to download content
from the remote, and so sync will only import when the --content option is
used. (And exporting only ever happens when --content is used.) The remote's
remote.<name>.annex-tracking-branch also must be configured,
and have the same value as the currently checked out branch.
- [remote]
- By default, all remotes are synced, except for remotes that have
remote.<name>.annex-sync set to false. By specifying the
names of remotes (or remote groups), you can control which ones to sync
with.
- --fast
- Only sync with the remotes with the lowest annex-cost value
configured.
- When a list of remotes (or remote groups) is provided, it picks from
amoung those, otherwise it picks from amoung all remotes.
- --only-annex -a,
--not-only-annex
- Only sync the git-annex branch and annexed content with remotes, not other
git branches.
- This avoids pulling and pushing other branches, and it avoids committing
any local changes. It's up to you to use regular git commands to do
that.
- The annex.synconlyannex configuration can be set to true to make
this be the default behavior of git-annex sync. To override such a
setting, use --not-only-annex.
- When this is combined with --no-content, only the git-annex branch will be
synced.
- --commit,
--no-commit
- A commit is done by default (unless annex.autocommit is set to
false).
- Use --no-commit to avoid committing local changes.
- --message=msg
- Use this option to specify a commit message.
- --pull,
--no-pull
- By default, syncing pulls from remotes and imports from some special
remotes. Use --no-pull to disable all pulling.
- When remote.<name>.annex-pull or
remote.<name>.annex-sync are set to false, pulling is
disabled for those remotes, and using --pull will not enable
it.
- --push,
--no-push
- By default, syncing pushes changes to remotes and exports to some special
remotes. Use --no-push to disable all pushing.
- When remote.<name>.annex-push or
remote.<name>.annex-sync are set to false, or
remote.<name>.annex-readonly is set to true, pushing is
disabled for those remotes, and using --push will not enable
it.
- --content,
--no-content
- Normally, syncing does not transfer the contents of annexed files. The
--content option causes the content of annexed files to also be uploaded
and downloaded as necessary, to sync the content between the repository
and its remotes.
- The annex.synccontent configuration can be set to true to make
content be synced by default.
- Normally this tries to get each annexed file that is in the working tree
and whose content the local repository does not yet have, from any remote
that it's syncing with that has a copy, and then copies each file to every
remote that it is syncing with. This behavior can be overridden by
configuring the preferred content of repositories. See
git-annex-preferred-content(1).
- --content-of=path
-C path
- While --content operates on all annexed files, --content-of allows
limiting the transferred files to ones in a given location.
- This option can be repeated multiple times with different paths.
- --all -A
- This option, when combined with --content, makes all available
versions of all files be synced, when preferred content settings
allow.
- Note that preferred content settings that use include= or
exclude= will only match the version of files currently in the work
tree, but not past versions of files.
- --jobs=N
-JN
- Enables parallel syncing with up to the specified number of jobs running
at once. For example: -J10
- Setting this to "cpus" will run one job per CPU core.
- When there are multiple git remotes, pushes will be made to them in
parallel. Pulls are not done in parallel because that tends to be less
efficient. When --content is synced, the files are processed in parallel
as well.
- --allow-unrelated-histories,
--no-allow-unrelated-histories
- Passed on to git merge, to control whether or not to merge
histories that do not share a common ancestor.
- --resolvemerge,
--no-resolvemerge
- By default, merge conflicts are automatically handled by sync. When two
conflicting versions of a file have been committed, both will be added to
the tree, under different filenames. For example, file "foo"
would be replaced with "foo.variant-A" and
"foo.variant-B". (See git-annex-resolvemerge(1) for
details.)
- Use --no-resolvemerge to disable this automatic merge conflict
resolution. It can also be disabled by setting annex.resolvemerge
to false.
- --backend
- Specifies which key-value backend to use when adding files, or when
importing from a special remote.
- --cleanup
- Removes the local and remote synced/ branches, which were created
and pushed by git-annex sync. This option prevents all other
syncing activities.
- This can come in handy when you've synced a change to remotes and now want
to reset your master branch back before that change. So you run git
reset and force-push the master branch to remotes, only to find that
the next git annex merge or git annex sync brings the
changes back. Why? Because the synced/master branch is hanging
around and still has the change in it. Cleaning up the synced/
branches prevents that problem.
- Also the
git-annex-common-options(1) can be used.
Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>