Provided by: git-annex_8.20200226-1_amd64 
NAME
git-annex - manage files with git, without checking their contents in
SYNOPSIS
git annex command [params ...]
DESCRIPTION
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.
EXAMPLES
# 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
COMMONLY USED COMMANDS
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.
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 --from remote branch[:subdir] | [path ...]
Add a tree of files to the repository.
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.
remotedaemon
Persistant communication with remotes.
See git-annex-remotedaemon(1) for details.
REPOSITORY SETUP COMMANDS
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.
renameremote
Renames a special remote.
See git-annex-renameremote(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.
adjust Switches a repository to use an adjusted branch, which can automatically unlock all files, etc.
See git-annex-adjust(1) for details.
direct Switches a repository to use direct mode. (deprecated)
See git-annex-direct(1) for details.
indirect
Switches a repository to use indirect mode. (deprecated)
See git-annex-indirect(1) for details.
REPOSITORY MAINTENANCE COMMANDS
fsck [path ...]
Checks the annex consistency, and warns about or fixes any problems found. This is a good
complement to git fsck.
See git-annex-fsck(1) for details.
expire [repository:]time ...
Expires repositories that have not recently performed an activity (such as a fsck).
See git-annex-expire(1) for details.
unused Checks the annex for data that does not correspond to any files present in any tag or branch, and
prints a numbered list of the data.
See git-annex-unused(1) for details.
dropunused [number|range ...]
Drops the data corresponding to the numbers, as listed by the last git annex unused
See git-annex-dropunused(1) for details.
addunused [number|range ...]
Adds back files for the content corresponding to the numbers or ranges, as listed by the last git
annex unused.
See git-annex-addunused(1) for details.
fix [path ...]
Fixes up symlinks that have become broken to again point to annexed content.
See git-annex-fix(1) for details.
merge Automatically merge changes from remotes.
See git-annex-merge(1) for details.
upgrade
Upgrades the repository.
See git-annex-upgrade(1) for details.
dead [repository ...] [--key key]
Indicates that a repository or a single key has been irretrievably lost.
See git-annex-dead(1) for details.
forget Causes the git-annex branch to be rewritten, throwing away historical data about past locations of
files.
See git-annex-forget(1) for details.
repair This can repair many of the problems with git repositories that git fsck detects, but does not
itself fix. It's useful if a repository has become badly damaged. One way this can happen is if a
repository used by git-annex is on a removable drive that gets unplugged at the wrong time.
See git-annex-repair(1) for details.
p2p Configure peer-2-Peer links between repositories.
See git-annex-p2p(1) for details.
QUERY COMMANDS
find [path ...]
Outputs a list of annexed files in the specified path. With no path, finds files in the current
directory and its subdirectories.
See git-annex-find(1) for details.
whereis [path ...]
Displays information about where the contents of files are located.
See git-annex-whereis(1) for details.
list [path ...]
Displays a table of remotes that contain the contents of the specified files. This is similar to
whereis but a more compact display.
See git-annex-list(1) for details.
log [path ...]
Displays the location log for the specified file or files, showing each repository they were added
to ("+") and removed from ("-").
See git-annex-log(1) for details.
info [directory|file|remote|uuid ...]
Displays statistics and other information for the specified item, which can be a directory, or a
file, or a remote, or the uuid of a repository.
When no item is specified, displays statistics and information for the repository as a whole.
See git-annex-info(1) for details.
version
Shows the version of git-annex, as well as repository version information.
See git-annex-version(1) for details.
map Generate map of repositories.
See git-annex-map(1) for details.
inprogress
Access files while they're being downloaded.
See git-annex-inprogress(1) for details.
METADATA COMMANDS
metadata [path ...]
The content of an annexed file can have any number of metadata fields attached to it to describe
it. Each metadata field can in turn have any number of values.
This command can be used to set metadata, or show the currently set metadata.
See git-annex-metadata(1) for details.
view [tag ...] [field=value ...] [field=glob ...] [!tag ...] [field!=value ...]
Uses metadata to build a view branch of the files in the current branch, and checks out the view
branch. Only files in the current branch whose metadata matches all the specified field values and
tags will be shown in the view.
See git-annex-view(1) for details.
vpop [N]
Switches from the currently active view back to the previous view. Or, from the first view back
to original branch.
See git-annex-vpop(1) for details.
vfilter [tag ...] [field=value ...] [!tag ...] [field!=value ...]
Filters the current view to only the files that have the specified field values and tags.
See git-annex-vfilter(1) for details.
vadd [field=glob ...] [field=value ...] [tag ...]
Changes the current view, adding an additional level of directories to categorize the files.
See git-annex-vfilter(1) for details.
vcycle When a view involves nested subdirectories, this cycles the order.
See git-annex-vcycle(1) for details.
UTILITY COMMANDS
migrate [path ...]
Changes the specified annexed files to use a different key-value backend.
See git-annex-migrate(1) for details.
reinject src dest
Moves the src file into the annex as the content of the dest file. This can be useful if you have
obtained the content of a file from elsewhere and want to put it in the local annex.
See git-annex-reinject(1) for details.
unannex [path ...]
Use this to undo an accidental git annex add command. It puts the file back how it was before the
add.
See git-annex-unannex(1) for details.
uninit De-initialize git-annex and clean out repository.
See git-annex-uninit(1) for details.
reinit uuid|description
Initialize repository, reusing old UUID.
See git-annex-reinit(1) for details.
PLUMBING COMMANDS
pre-commit [path ...]
This is meant to be called from git's pre-commit hook. git annex init automatically creates a
pre-commit hook using this.
See git-annex-pre-commit(1) for details.
post-receive
This is meant to be called from git's post-receive hook. git annex init automatically creates a
post-receive hook using this.
See git-annex-post-receive(1) for details.
lookupkey [file ...]
Looks up key used for file.
See git-annex-lookupkey(1) for details.
calckey [file ...]
Calculates the key that would be used to refer to a file.
See git-annex-calckey(1) for details.
contentlocation [key ..]
Looks up location of annexed content for a key.
See git-annex-contentlocation(1) for details.
examinekey [key ...]
Print information that can be determined purely by looking at the key.
See git-annex-examinekey(1) for details.
matchexpression
Checks if a preferred content expression matches provided data.
See git-annex-matchexpression(1) for details.
fromkey [key file]
Manually set up a file in the git repository to link to a specified key.
See git-annex-fromkey(1) for details.
registerurl [key url]
Registers an url for a key.
See git-annex-registerurl(1) for details.
setkey key file
Moves a file into the annex as the content of a key.
See git-annex-setkey(1) for details.
dropkey [key ...]
Drops annexed content for specified keys.
See git-annex-dropkey(1) for details.
transferkey key [--from=remote|--to=remote]
Transfers a key from or to a remote.
See git-annex-transferkey(1) for details.
transferkeys
Used internally by the assistant.
See git-annex-transferkey(1) for details.
setpresentkey key uuid [1|0]
This plumbing-level command changes git-annex's records about whether the specified key's content
is present in a remote with the specified uuid.
See git-annex-setpresentkey(1) for details.
readpresentkey key uuid
Read records of where key is present.
See git-annex-readpresentkey(1) for details.
checkpresentkey key remote
Check if key is present in remote.
See git-annex-checkpresentkey(1) for details.
rekey [file key ...]
Change keys used for files.
See git-annex-rekey(1) for details.
resolvemerge
Resolves a conflicted merge, by adding both conflicting versions of the file to the tree, using
variants of their filename. This is done automatically when using git annex sync or git annex
merge.
See git-annex-resolvemerge(1) for details.
diffdriver
This can be used to make git diff use an external diff driver with annexed files.
See git-annex-diffdriver(1) for details.
smudge This command lets git-annex be used as a git filter driver, allowing annexed files in the git
repository to be unlocked at all times, instead of being symlinks.
See git-annex-smudge(1) for details.
findref [ref]
Lists files in a git ref. (deprecated)
See git-annex-findref(1) for details.
proxy -- git cmd [options]
Bypass direct mode guard. (deprecated)
See git-annex-proxy(1) for details.
TESTING COMMANDS
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.
COMMON OPTIONS
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
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.
CONFIGURATION
Like other git commands, git-annex is configured via .git/config.
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 using git-annex-config.
annex.maxextensionlength
Maximum length, in bytes, 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. At most two extensions at
the end of a filename will be preserved, e.g. .gz or .tar.gz .
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. It is an expression that
matches the large files, eg "include=*.mp3 or largerthan(500kb)" See git-
annex-matching-expression(1) for details on the syntax.
Overrides any annex.largefiles attributes in .gitattributes files.
To configure a default annex.largefiles for all clones of the repository, this can be set in git-
annex-config(1).
This configures the behavior of both git-annex and git when adding files to the repository. By
default, git-annex add adds all files to the annex (except dotfiles), and git add adds files to
git (unless they were added to the annex previously). When annex.largefiles is configured, both
git annex add and git add will add matching large files to the annex, and the other files to git.
Other git-annex commands also honor annex.largefiles, including git annex import, git annex
addurl, git annex importfeed and the assistant.
annex.dotfiles
Normally, dotfiles are assumed to be files like .gitignore, whose content should always be part of
the git repository, so they will not be added to the annex. Setting annex.dotfiles to true makes
dotfiles be added to the annex the same as any other file.
To annex only some dotfiles, set this and configure annex.largefiles to match the ones you want.
For example, to match only dotfiles ending in ".big"
git config annex.largefiles "(include=.*.big or include=*/.*.big) or (exclude=.* and
exclude=*/.*)"
git config annex.dotfiles true
To configure a default annex.dotfiles for all clones of the repository, this can be set in git-
annex-config(1).
annex.gitaddtoannex
Setting this to false will prevent git add from adding files to the annex, despite the
annex.largefiles configuration.
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
Commands like git-annex add default to adding files to the repository in locked form. This can
make them add the files in unlocked form, the same as if git-annex-unlock(1) were run on the
files.
This can be set to "true" to add everything unlocked, or it can be a more complicated expression
that matches files by name, size, or content. See git-annex-matching-expression(1) for details.
To configure a default annex.addunlocked for all clones of the repository, this can be set in git-
annex-config(1).
(Using git add always adds files in unlocked form and it is not affected by this setting.)
When a repository has core.symlinks set to false, or has an adjusted unlocked branch checked out,
this setting is ignored, and files are always added to the repository in unlocked form.
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.
Setting this to "cpus" will run one job per CPU core.
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.allowsign
By default git-annex avoids gpg signing commits that it makes when they're not the purpose of a
command, but only a side effect. That default avoids lots of gpg password prompts when
commit.gpgSign is set. A command like git annex sync or git annex merge will gpg sign its commit,
but a command like git annex get, that updates the git-annex branch, will not. The assistant also
avoids signing commits.
Setting annex.allowsign to true lets all commits be signed, as controlled by commit.gpgSign and
other git configuration.
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.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(1).
annex.synccontent
Set to true to make git-annex sync default to syncing annexed content.
To configure the behavior in all clones of the repository, this can be set in git-annex-config(1).
annex.synconlyannex
Set to true to make git-annex sync default to only sincing the git-annex branch and annexed
content.
To configure the behavior in all clones of the repository, this can be set in git-annex-config(1).
annex.debug
Set to true to enable debug logging by default.
annex.version
The current version of the git-annex repository. This is maintained by git-annex and should never
be manually changed.
annex.autoupgraderepository
When an old git-annex repository version has become deprecated, git-annex will normally
automatically upgrade the repository to the new version.
If this is set to false, git-annex won't automatically upgrade the repository. Instead it will
exit with an error message. You can run git annex upgrade yourself when you are ready to upgrade
the repository.
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.
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.
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/>.
CONFIGURATION OF REMOTES
Remotes are configured using these settings in .git/config.
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-tracking-branch
This is for use with special remotes that support exports and imports.
When set to eg, "master", this tells git-annex that you want the special remote to track that
branch.
When set to eg, "master:subdir", the special remote tracks only the subdirectory of that branch.
git-annex sync --content will import changes from the remote and merge them into the
annex-tracking-branch. They also export changes made to the branch to the remote.
remote.<name>.annex-export-tracking
Deprecated name for remote.<name>.annex-tracking-branch. Will still be used if it's configured and
remote.<name>.annex-tracking-branch is not.
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-config-uuid
Used for some special remotes, points to a different special remote configuration to use.
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.
remote.<name>.annex-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>.annex-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>.annex-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>.annex-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>.annex-adb
Used to identify remotes on Android devices accessed via adb. Normally this is automatically set
up by git annex initremote.
remote.<name>.annex-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>.annex-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>.annex-s3
Used to identify Amazon S3 special remotes. Normally this is automatically set up by git annex
initremote.
remote.<name>.annex-glacier
Used to identify Amazon Glacier special remotes. Normally this is automatically set up by git
annex initremote.
remote.<name>.annex-webdav
Used to identify webdav special remotes. Normally this is automatically set up by git annex
initremote.
remote.<name>.annex-tahoe
Used to identify tahoe special remotes. Points to the configuration directory for tahoe.
remote.<name>.annex-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>.annex-git-lfs
Used to identify git-lfs special remotes. Normally this is automatically set up by git annex
initremote.
It is set to "true" if this is a git-lfs remote.
remote.<name>.annex-hooktype, remote.<name>.annex-externaltype
Used by hook special remotes and external special remotes to record the type of the remote.
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-ip-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-ip-addresses
By default, git-annex only makes connections to public IP addresses; it will refuse to use HTTP
and other servers on localhost or on a private network.
This setting can override that behavior, allowing access to particular IP addresses that would
normally be blocked. 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 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-ip-addresses=all.
To allow accessing local or private IP addresses on only specific ports, use the syntax
"[addr]:port". For example, "[127.0.0.1]:80 [127.0.0.1]:443 [::1]:80 [::1]:443" allows localhost
on the http ports only.
annex.security.allowed-http-addresses
Old name for annex.security.allowed-ip-addresses. If set, this is treated the same as having
annex.security.allowed-ip-addresses set.
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.
CONFIGURATION OF ASSISTANT
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.
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(1).
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.
CONFIGURATION VIA .gitattributes
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. Since attributes cannot contain spaces, it is difficult to use for more complex
annex.largefiles settings. Setting annex.largefiles in git-annex-config(1) is an easier way to configure
it across all clones of the repository. See git-annex-matching-expression(1) for details on the syntax.
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.
EXIT STATUS
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.
ENVIRONMENT
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.
FILES
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.
SEE ALSO
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/.
AUTHOR
Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>
<https://git-annex.branchable.com/>
git-annex(1)