Ubuntu Manpage: git-annex - manage files with git, without checking their contents in

Provided by: git-annex_5.20140412ubuntu1_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/_why_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).

add [path ...]
Adds files in the path to the annex. If no path is specified, adds files from the
current directory and below.

Files that are already checked into git, or that git has been configured to ignore
will be silently skipped. (Use --force to add ignored files.)

Dotfiles are skipped unless explicitly listed, or the --include-dotfiles option is
used.

get [path ...]
Makes the content of annexed files available in this repository. This will involve
copying them from another repository, or downloading them, or transferring them
from some kind of key-value store.

Normally git-annex will choose which repository to copy the content from, but you
can override this using the --from option.

drop [path ...]
Drops the content of annexed files from this repository.

git-annex will refuse to drop content if it cannot verify it is safe to do so. This
can be overridden with the --force switch.

To drop content from a remote, specify --from.

move [path ...]
When used with the --from option, moves the content of annexed files from the
specified repository to the current one.

When used with the --to option, moves the content of annexed files from the current
repository to the specified one.

copy [path ...]
When used with the --from option, copies the content of annexed files from the
specified repository to the current one.

When used with the --to option, copies the content of annexed files from the
current repository to the specified one.

To avoid contacting the remote to check if it has every file when copying --to the
repository, specify --fast

To force checking the remote for every file when copying --from the repository,
specify --force.

status [path ...]
Similar to git status --short, displays the status of the files in the working
tree. Shows files that are not checked into git, files that have been deleted, and
files that have been modified. Particularly useful in direct mode.

unlock [path ...]
Normally, the content of annexed files is protected from being changed. Unlocking
an annexed file allows it to be modified. This replaces the symlink for each
specified file with a copy of the file's content. You can then modify it and git
annex add (or git commit) to inject it back into the annex.

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.

sync [remote ...]
Use this command when you want to synchronize the local repository with one or more
of its remotes. You can specify the remotes to sync with; the default is to sync
with all remotes. Or specify --fast to sync with the remotes with the lowest
annex-cost value.

The sync process involves first committing all local changes, then fetching and
merging the synced/master 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.

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.somekey" and
"foo.otherkey".

Note that syncing with a remote will not update the remote's working tree with
changes made to the local repository. However, those changes are pushed to the
remote, so they can be merged into its working tree by running "git annex sync" on
the remote.

With the --content option, the contents of annexed files in the work tree will also
be uploaded and downloaded from remotes. By default, this tries to get each annexed
file that the local repository does not yet have, and then copies each file to
every remote that it is syncing with. This behavior can be overridden by
configuring the preferred content of a repository. See see PREFERRED CONTENT below.

merge This performs the same merging that is done by the sync command, but without
pushing or pulling any data.

One way to use this is to put git annex merge into a repository's post-receive
hook. Then any syncs to the repository will update its working copy automatically.

mirror [path ...]
This causes a destination repository to mirror a source repository.

To use the local repository as the source repository, specify mirror --to remote.

To use a remote as the source repository, specify mirror --from remote.

Each specified file in the source repository is mirrored to the destination
repository. If a file's content is present in the source repository, it is copied
to the destination repository. If a file's content is not present in the source
repository, it will be dropped from the destination repository when the numcopies
setting allows.

Note that mirror does not sync the git repository, but only the file contents.

Also, --all may be specified to mirror all objects stored in the git annex, not
only objects used by currently existing files. However, this bypasses checking the
.gitattributes annex.numcopies setting when dropping files.

addurl [url ...]
Downloads each url to its own file, which is added to the annex.

To avoid immediately downloading the url, specify --fast.

To avoid storing the size of the url's content, and accept whatever is there at a
future point, specify --relaxed. (Implies --fast.)

Normally the filename is based on the full url, so will look like
"www.example.com_dir_subdir_bigfile". For a shorter filename, specify
--pathdepth=N. For example, --pathdepth=1 will use "dir/subdir/bigfile", while
--pathdepth=3 will use "bigfile". It can also be negative; --pathdepth=-2 will use
the last two parts of the url.

Or, to directly specify what file the url is added to, specify --file. This
changes the behavior; now all the specified urls are recorded as alternate
locations from which the file can be downloaded. In this mode, addurl can be used
both to add new files, or to add urls to existing files.

When quvi is installed, urls are automatically tested to see if they point to a
video hosting site, and the video is downloaded instead.

rmurl file url
Record that the file is no longer available at the url.

import [path ...]
Moves files from somewhere outside the git working copy, and adds them to the
annex. Individual files to import can be specified. If a directory is specified,
the entire directory is imported.

git annex import /media/camera/DCIM/*

By default, importing two files with the same contents from two different locations
will result in both files being added to the repository. (With all checksumming
backends, including the default SHA256E, only one copy of the data will be stored.)

To not delete files from the import location, use the --duplicate option. This
could allow importing the same files repeatedly to different locations in a
repository. More likely, it could be used to import the same files to a number of
different branches or separate git repositories.

To only import files whose content has not been seen before by git-annex, use the
--deduplicate option. Duplicate files will be deleted from the import location.

To only import files whose content has not been seen before by git-annex, but avoid
deleting duplicate files, use the --skip-duplicates option.

The --clean-duplicates option does not import any new files, but any files found in
the import location that are duplicates of content in the annex are deleted.

(Note that using --deduplicate or --clean-duplicates with the WORM backend does not
look at file content, but filename and mtime.)

importfeed [url ...]
Imports the contents of podcast feeds. Only downloads files whose urls have not
already been added to the repository before, so you can delete, rename, etc the
resulting files and repeated runs won't duplicate them. (Use --force to force
downloading urls it's seen before.)

Use --template to control where the files are stored. The default template is
'${feedtitle}/${itemtitle}${extension}' (Other available variables: feedauthor,
itemauthor, itemsummary, itemdescription, itemrights, itemid, itempubdate)

The --relaxed and --fast options behave the same as they do in addurl.

When quvi is installed, links in the feed are tested to see if they are on a video
hosting site, and the video is downloaded. This allows importing eg, youtube
playlists.

watch Watches for changes to files in the current directory and its subdirectories, and
takes care of automatically adding new files, as well as dealing with deleted,
copied, and moved files. With this running as a daemon in the background, you no
longer need to manually run git commands when manipulating your files.

By default, all files in the directory will be added to the repository. (Including
dotfiles.) To block some files from being added, use .gitignore files.

By default, all files that are added are added to the annex, the same as when you
run git annex add. If you configure annex.largefiles, files that it does not match
will instead be added with git add.

To not daemonize, run with --foreground ; to stop a running daemon, run with
--stop.

assistant
Like watch, but also automatically syncs changes to other remotes. Typically
started at boot, or when you log in.

With the --autostart option, the assistant is started in any repositories it has
created. These are listed in ~/.config/git-annex/autostart.

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.

By default, the webapp can only be accessed from localhost, and running it opens a
browser window.

To use the webapp on a remote computer, use the --listen=address option to specify
the address the web server should listen on (or set annex.listen). This disables
running a local web browser, and outputs the url you can use to open the webapp.

When using the webapp on a remote computer, you'll almost certianly want to enable
HTTPS. The webapp will use HTTPS if it finds a .git/annex/privkey.pem and
.git/annex/certificate.pem. Here's one way to generate those files, using a
self-signed certificate:

openssl genrsa -out .git/annex/privkey.pem 4096 openssl req -new -x509 -key
.git/annex/privkey.pem > .git/annex/certificate.pem

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.

It's useful, but not mandatory, to initialize each new clone of a repository with
its own description. If you don't provide one, one will be generated using the
username, hostname and the path.

describe repository description
Changes the description of a repository.

The repository to describe can be specified by git remote name or by uuid. To
change the description of the current repository, use "here".

initremote name [param=value ...]
Creates a new special remote, and adds it to .git/config.

The remote's configuration is specified by the parameters. Different types of
special remotes need different configuration values. The command will prompt for
parameters as needed.

All special remotes support encryption. You can either specify encryption=none to
disable encryption, or specify encryption=hybrid keyid=$keyid ... to specify a GPG
key id (or an email address associated with a key).

There are actually three schemes that can be used for management of the encryption
keys. When using the encryption=hybrid scheme, additional GPG keys can be given
access to the encrypted special remote easily (without re-encrypting everything).
When using encryption=shared, a shared key is generated and stored in the git
repository, allowing anyone who can clone the git repository to access it. Finally,
when using encryption=pubkey, content in the special remote is directly encrypted
to the specified GPG keys, and additional ones cannot easily be given access.

Note that with encryption enabled, a cryptographic key is created. This requires
sufficient entropy. If initremote seems to hang or take a long time while
generating the key, you may want to Ctrl-c it and re-run with --fast, which causes
it to use a lower-quality source of randomness.

Example Amazon S3 remote:

git annex initremote mys3 type=S3 encryption=hybrid keyid=me@example.com
datacenter=EU

enableremote name [param=value ...]
Enables use of an existing special remote in the current repository, which may be a
different repository than the one in which it was originally created with the
initremote command.

The name of the remote is the same name used when originally creating that remote
with "initremote". Run "git annex enableremote" with no parameters to get a list of
special remote names.

Some special remotes may need parameters to be specified every time. For example,
the directory special remote requires a directory= parameter.

This command can also be used to modify the configuration of an existing special
remote, by specifying new values for parameters that were originally set when using
initremote. (However, some settings such as the as the encryption scheme cannot be
changed once a special remote has been created.)

The GPG keys that an encrypted special remote is encrypted with can be changed
using the keyid+= and keyid-= parameters. These respectively add and remove keys
from the list. However, note that removing a key does NOT necessarily prevent the
key's owner from accessing data in the encrypted special remote (which is by design
impossible, short of deleting the remote).

One use-case of keyid-= is to replace a revoked key with a new key:

git annex enableremote mys3 keyid-=revokedkey keyid+=newkey

Also, note that for encrypted special remotes using plain public-key encryption
(encryption=pubkey), adding or removing a key has NO effect on files that have
already been copied to the remote. Hence using keyid+= and keyid-= with such
remotes should be used with care, and make little sense except in cases like the
revoked key example above.

numcopies [N]
Tells git-annex how many copies it should preserve of files, over all repositories.
The default is 1.

Run without a number to get the current value.

When git-annex is asked to drop a file, it first verifies that the required number
of copies can be satisfied amoung all the other repositories that have a copy of
the file.

This can be overridden on a per-file basis by the annex.numcopies setting in
.gitattributes files.

trust [repository ...]
Records that a repository is trusted to not unexpectedly lose content. Use with
care.

To trust the current repository, use "here".

untrust [repository ...]
Records that a repository is not trusted and could lose content at any time.

semitrust [repository ...]
Returns a repository to the default semi trusted state.

dead [repository ...]
Indicates that the repository has been irretrievably lost. (To undo, use
semitrust.)

group repository groupname
Adds a repository to a group, such as "archival", "enduser", or "transfer". The
groupname must be a single word.

ungroup repository groupname
Removes a repository from a group.

wanted repository [expression]
When run with an expression, configures the content that is preferred to be held in
the archive. See PREFERRED CONTENT below.

For example:

git annex wanted . "include=*.mp3 or include=*.ogg"

Without an expression, displays the current preferred content setting of the
repository.

schedule repository [expression]
When run with an expression, configures scheduled jobs to run at a particular time.
This can be used to make the assistant periodically run incremental fscks. See
SCHEDULED JOBS below.

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.

direct Switches a repository to use direct mode, where rather than symlinks to files, the
files are directly present in the repository.

As part of the switch to direct mode, any changed files will be committed.

Note that git commands that operate on the work tree are often unsafe to use in
direct mode repositories, and can result in data loss or other bad behavior.

indirect
Switches a repository back from direct mode to the default, indirect mode.

As part of the switch from direct mode, any changed files will be committed.

REPOSITORY MAINTENANCE COMMANDS

fsck [path ...]

With no parameters, this command checks the whole annex for consistency, and warns
about or fixes any problems found. This is a good compliment to git fsck.

With parameters, only the specified files are checked.

To check a remote to fsck, specify --from.

To avoid expensive checksum calculations (and expensive transfers when fscking a
remote), specify --fast.

To start a new incremental fsck, use the --incremental option. Then the next time
you fsck, you can instead use the --more option to skip over files that have
already been checked, and continue where it left off.

The --incremental-schedule option makes a new incremental fsck be started a
configurable time after the last incremental fsck was started. Once the current
incremental fsck has completely finished, it causes a new one to start.

Maybe you'd like to run a fsck for 5 hours at night, picking up each night where it
left off. You'd like this to continue until all files have been fscked. And once
it's done, you'd like a new fsck pass to start, but no more often than once a
month. Then put this in a nightly cron job:

git annex fsck --incremental-schedule 30d --time-limit 5h

To verify data integrity only while disregarding required number of copies, use
--numcopies=1.

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.

To only show unused temp and bad files, specify --fast.

To check for annexed data on a remote, specify --from.

After running this command, you can use the --unused option to operate on all the
unused data that was found. For example, to move all unused data to origin:

git annex unused; git annex move --unused --to origin

dropunused [number|range ...]
Drops the data corresponding to the numbers, as listed by the last git annex unused

You can also specify ranges of numbers, such as "1-1000". Or, specify "all" to
drop all unused data.

To drop the data from a remote, specify --from.

addunused [number|range ...]
Adds back files for the content corresponding to the numbers or ranges, as listed
by the last git annex unused. The files will have names starting with "unused."

fix [path ...]
Fixes up symlinks that have become broken to again point to annexed content. This
is useful to run if you have been moving the symlinks around, but is done
automatically when committing a change with git too.

upgrade
Upgrades the repository to current layout.

forget Causes the git-annex branch to be rewritten, throwing away historical data about
past locations of files. The resulting branch will use less space, but git annex
log will not be able to show where files used to be located.

To also prune references to repositories that have been marked as dead, specify
--drop-dead.

When this rewritten branch is merged into other clones of the repository, git-annex
will automatically perform the same rewriting to their local git-annex branches. So
the forgetfulness will automatically propagate out from its starting point until
all repositories running git-annex have forgotten their old history. (You may need
to force git to push the branch to any git repositories not running git-annex.)

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.

This command can actually be used inside git repositories that do not use git-annex
at all; when used in a repository using git-annex, it does additional repairs of
the git-annex branch.

It works by deleting any corrupt objects from the git repository, and retrieving
all missing objects it can from the remotes of the repository.

If that is not sufficient to fully recover the repository, it can also reset
branches back to commits before the corruption happened, delete branches that are
no longer available due to the lost data, and remove any missing files from the
index. It will only do this if run with the --force option, since that rewrites
history and throws out missing data. Note that the --force option never touches
tags, even if they are no longer usable due to missing data.

After running this command, you will probably want to run git fsck to verify it
fixed the repository. Note that fsck may still complain about objects referenced by
the reflog, or the stash, if they were unable to be recovered. This command does
not try to clean up either the reflog or the stash.

It is also a good idea to run git annex fsck --fast after this command, to make
sure that the git-annex branch reflects reality.

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.

By default, only lists annexed files whose content is currently present. This can
be changed by specifying matching options. To list all annexed files, present or
not, specify --include "*". To list all annexed files whose content is not present,
specify --not --in=here

To output filenames terminated with nulls, for use with xargs -0, specify --print0.
Or, a custom output formatting can be specified using --format. The default output
format is the same as --format='${file}\n'

These variables are available for use in formats: file, key, backend, bytesize,
humansize, keyname, hashdirlower, hashdirmixed, mtime.

whereis [path ...]
Displays a information about where the contents of files are located.

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. Only configured remotes are shown
by default; specify --allrepos to list all repositories.

log [path ...]
Displays the location log for the specified file or files, showing each repository
they were added to ("+") and removed from ("-").

To limit how far back to search for location log changes, the options --since,
--after, --until, --before, and --max-count can be specified. They are passed
through to git log. For example, --since "1 month ago"

To generate output suitable for the gource visualization program, specify --gource.

info [directory ...]
Displays some statistics and other information, including how much data is in the
annex and a list of all known repositories.

To only show the data that can be gathered quickly, use --fast.

When a directory is specified, shows a differently formatted info display for that
directory. In this mode, all of the matching options can be used to filter the
files that will be included in the information.

For example, suppose you want to run "git annex get .", but would first like to see
how much disk space that will use. Then run:

git annex info --fast . --not --in here

version
Shows the version of git-annex, as well as repository version information.

map Helps you keep track of your repositories, and the connections between them, by
going out and looking at all the ones it can get to, and generating a Graphviz file
displaying it all. If the dot command is available, it is used to display the file
to your screen (using x11 backend). (To disable this display, specify --fast)

This command only connects to hosts that the host it's run on can directly connect
to. It does not try to tunnel through intermediate hosts. So it might not show all
connections between the repositories in the network.

Also, if connecting to a host requires a password, you might have to enter it
several times as the map is being built.

Note that this subcommand can be used to graph any git repository; it is not
limited to git-annex repositories.

METADATA COMMANDS

       metadata [path ...] [-s field=value -s field+=value -s field-=value ...] [-g field]

              The  content  of  a  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.

              To show current metadata, run without any -s parameters.  The  --json  option  will
              enable json output.

              To  only  get  the  value(s)  of  a single field, use -g field.  The values will be
              output one per line, with no other output, so this is suitable for use in a script.

              To set a field's value, removing any old value(s), use -s field=value.

              To add an additional value, use -s field+=value.

              To remove a value, use -s field-=value.

              To set a value,  only  if  the  field  does  not  already  have  a  value,  use  -s
              field?=value

              To set a tag, use -t tag, and use -u tag to remove a tag.

              For example, to set some tags on a file and also its author:

               git annex metadata annexscreencast.ogv -t video -t screencast -s author+=Alice

       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.

              Multiple  values  for  a  metadata  field  can be specified, either by using a glob
              (field="*") or by listing each wanted value. The resulting view will put  files  in
              subdirectories according to the value of their fields.

              Once  within  such  a  view,  you can make additional directories, and copy or move
              files into them. When you commit, the metadata will be  updated  to  correspond  to
              your changes.

              There   are   fields   corresponding   to   the   path  to  the  file.  So  a  file
              "foo/bar/baz/file" has  fields  "/=foo",  "foo/=bar",  and  "foo/bar/=baz".   These
              location fields can be used the same as other metadata to construct the view.

              For  example, /=podcasts will only include files from the podcasts directory in the
              view, while podcasts/=* will preserve the subdirectories of the podcasts  directory
              in the view.

       vpop [N]
              Switches  from  the  currently active view back to the previous view.  Or, from the
              first view back to original branch.

              The optional number tells how many views to pop.

       vfilter [tag ...] [field=value ...] [!tag ...] [field!=value ...]
              Filters the current view to only the files that have the specified field values and
              tags.

       vadd [field=glob ...] [field=value ...] [tag ...]
              Changes  the  current view, adding an additional level of directories to categorize
              the files.

              For example, when the view  is  by  author/tag,  vadd  year=*  will  change  it  to
              year/author/tag.

              So will vadd year=2014 year=2013, but limiting the years in view to only those two.

       vcycle When a view involves nested subdirectories, this cycles the order.

              For  example,  when  the  view  is  by  year/author/tag,  vcycle  will switch it to
              author/tag/year.

UTILITY COMMANDS

migrate [path ...]

Changes the specified annexed files to use the default key-value backend (or the
one specified with --backend). Only files whose content is currently available are
migrated.

Note that the content is also still available using the old key after migration.
Use git annex unused to find and remove the old key.

Normally, nothing will be done to files already using the new backend. However, if
a backend changes the information it uses to construct a key, this can also be used
to migrate files to use the new key format.

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.

Automatically runs fsck on dest to check that the expected content was provided.

Example:

git annex reinject /tmp/foo.iso foo.iso

unannex [path ...]
Use this to undo an accidental git annex add command. It puts the file back how it
was before the add.

Note that for safety, the content of the file remains in the annex, until you use
git annex unused and git annex dropunused.

This is not the command you should use if you intentionally annexed a file and
don't want its contents any more. In that case you should use git annex drop
instead, and you can also git rm the file.

Normally this does a slow copy of the file. In --fast mode, it instead makes a hard
link from the file to the content in the annex. But use --fast mode with caution,
because editing the file will change the content in the annex.

uninit Use this to stop using git annex. It will unannex every file in the repository, and
remove all of git-annex's other data, leaving you with a git repository plus the
previously annexed files.

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.

Fixes up symlinks that are staged as part of a commit, to ensure they point to
annexed content. Also handles injecting changes to unlocked files into the annex.
When in a view, updates metadata to reflect changes made to files in the view.

lookupkey [file ...]
This plumbing-level command looks up the key used for a file in the index. The key
is output to stdout. If there is no key (because the file is not present in the
index, or is not a git-annex managed file), nothing is output, and it exits
nonzero.

examinekey [key ...]
This plumbing-level command is given a key, and prints information that can be
determined purely by looking at the key.

To specify what information to print, use --format. Or use --json to get all
available information in JSON format.

The same variables can be used in the format string as can be used in the format
string of git annex find (except there is no file option here).

For example, the location a key's value is stored (in indirect mode) can be looked
up by running:

git annex examinekey --format='.git/annex/objects/${hashdirmixed}${key}/${key}'

fromkey key file
This plumbing-level command can be used to manually set up a file in the git
repository to link to a specified key.

dropkey [key ...]
This plumbing-level command drops the annexed data for the specified keys from this
repository.

This can be used to drop content for arbitrary keys, which do not need to have a
file in the git repository pointing at them.

transferkey
This plumbing-level command is used to request a single key be transferred. Either
the --from or the --to option can be used to specify the remote to use. A --file
option can be used to hint at the file associated with the key.

transferkeys
This plumbing-level command is used by the assistant to transfer data. It is fed
instructions about the keys to transfer using an internal stdio protocol, which is
intentionally not documented (as it may change at any time).

rekey [file key ...]
This plumbing-level command is similar to migrate, but you specify both the file,
and the new key to use for it.

With --force, even files whose content is not currently available will be rekeyed.
Use with caution.

test This runs git-annex's built-in test suite.

There are several parameters, provided by Haskell's tasty test framework.

remotedaemon
Detects when remotes have changed and fetches from them.

xmppgit
This command is used internally to perform git pulls over XMPP.

OPTIONS

--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.

--auto Enable automatic mode. Commands that get, drop, or move file contents will only do
so when needed to help satisfy the setting of numcopies, and preferred content
configuration.

--all Operate on all data that has been stored in the git annex, including old versions
of files. This is the default behavior when running git-annex in a bare repository;
in a non-bare repository the normal behavior is to only operate on specified files
in the working tree.

--unused
Operate on all data that has been determined to be unused by a previous run of
git-annex unused.

--key=key
Operate on only the specified key.

--quiet
Avoid the default verbose display of what is done; only show errors and progress
displays.

--verbose
Enable verbose display.

--json Rather than the normal output, generate JSON. This is intended to be parsed by
programs that use git-annex. Each line of output is a JSON object. Note that JSON
output is only usable with some git-annex commands, like info, find, whereis, and
metadata.

--debug
Show debug messages.

--no-debug
Disable debug messages.

--from=repository
Specifies a repository that content will be retrieved from, or that should
otherwise be acted on.

It should be specified using the name of a configured remote.

--to=repository
Specifies a repository that content will be sent to.

It should be specified using the name of a configured remote.

--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.

--format=value
Specifies a custom output format. The value is a format string, in which '${var}'
is expanded to the value of a variable. To right-justify a variable with
whitespace, use '${var;width}' ; to left-justify a variable, use '${var;-width}';
to escape unusual characters in a variable, use '${escaped_var}'

Also, '\n' is a newline, '\000' is a NULL, etc.

--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, eg 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.

MATCHING OPTIONS

These options can all be specified multiple times, and can be combined to limit which
files git-annex acts on.

Arbitrarily complicated expressions can be built using these options. For example:

--exclude '*.mp3' --and --not -( --in=usbdrive --or --in=archive -)

The above example prevents git-annex from working on mp3 files whose file contents are
present at either of two repositories.

--exclude=glob
Skips files matching the glob pattern. The glob is matched relative to the current
directory. For example:

--exclude='*.mp3' --exclude='subdir/*'

Note that this will not match anything when using --all or --unused.

--include=glob
Skips files not matching the glob pattern. (Same as --not --exclude.) For
example, to include only mp3 and ogg files:

--include='*.mp3' --or --include='*.ogg'

Note that this will not skip anything when using --all or --unused.

--in=repository
Matches only files that git-annex believes have their contents present in a
repository. Note that it does not check the repository to verify that it still has
the content.

The repository should be specified using the name of a configured remote, or the
UUID or description of a repository. For the current repository, use --in=here

--in=repository@{date}
Matches files currently in the work tree whose content was present in the
repository on the given date.

The date is specified in the same syntax documented in gitrevisions(7). Note that
this uses the reflog, so dates far in the past cannot be queried.

For example, you might need to run git annex drop . to temporarily free up disk
space. The next day, you can get back the files you dropped using git annex get .
--in=here@{yesterday}

--copies=number
Matches only files that git-annex believes to have the specified number of copies,
or more. Note that it does not check remotes to verify that the copies still exist.

--copies=trustlevel:number
Matches only files that git-annex believes have the specified number of copies, on
remotes with the specified trust level. For example, --copies=trusted:2

To match any trust level at or higher than a given level, use 'trustlevel+'. For
example, --copies=semitrusted+:2

--copies=groupname:number
Matches only files that git-annex believes have the specified number of copies, on
remotes in the specified group. For example, --copies=archive:2

--lackingcopies=number
Matches only files that git-annex believes need the specified number or more
additional copies to be made in order to satisfy their numcopies settings.

--approxlackingcopies=number
Like lackingcopies, but does not look at .gitattributes annex.numcopies settings.
This makes it significantly faster.

--inbackend=name
Matches only files whose content is stored using the specified key-value backend.

--inallgroup=groupname
Matches only files that git-annex believes are present in all repositories in the
specified group.

--smallerthan=size

--largerthan=size
Matches only files whose content is smaller than, or larger than the specified
size.

The size can be specified with any commonly used units, for example, "0.5 gb" or
"100 KiloBytes"

--metadata field=glob
Matches only files that have a metadata field attached with a value that matches
the glob. The values of metadata fields are matched case insensitively.

--want-get
Matches files that the preferred content settings for the repository make it want
to get. Note that this will match even files that are already present, unless
limited with e.g., --not --in .

Note that this will not match anything when using --all or --unused.

--want-drop
Matches files that the preferred content settings for the repository make it want
to drop. Note that this will match even files that have already been dropped,
unless limited with e.g., --in .

Note that this will not match anything when using --all or --unused.

--not Inverts the next matching option. For example, to only act on files with less than
3 copies, use --not --copies=3

--and Requires that both the previous and the next matching option matches. The default.

--or Requires that either the previous, or the next matching option matches.

-( Opens a group of matching options.

-) Closes a group of matching options.

PREFERRED CONTENT

       Each repository has  a  preferred  content  setting,  which  specifies  content  that  the
       repository  wants  to have present. These settings can be configured using git annex vicfg
       or git annex wanted.  They are used by the --auto option, and by the git-annex assistant.

       The preferred content settings are similar, but not  identical  to  the  matching  options
       specified above, just without the dashes.  For example:

        exclude=archive/* and (include=*.mp3 or smallerthan=1mb)

       The  main  differences  are that exclude= and include= always match relative to the top of
       the git repository, and that there is no equivilant to --in.

       When a repository is in one of the standard predefined groups, like "backup" and "client",
       setting  its  preferred  content  to  "standard"  will  use  a  built-in preferred content
       expression developed for that group.

SCHEDULED JOBS

       The git-annex assistant daemon can be configured to run scheduled jobs.  This  is  similar
       to  cron  and anacron (and you can use them if you prefer), but has the advantage of being
       integrated into git-annex, and so being able to e.g., fsck a  repository  on  a  removable
       drive when the drive gets connected.

       The scheduled jobs can be configured using git annex vicfg or git annex schedule.

       These  actions are available: "fsck self", "fsck UUID" (where UUID is the UUID of a remote
       to fsck). After the action comes the duration to allow the action to run, and finally  the
       schedule of when to run it.

       To schedule multiple jobs, separate them with "; ".

       Some examples:

        fsck self 30m every day at any time
        fsck self 1h every month at 3 AM
        fsck self 1h on day 1 of every month at any time
        fsck self 1h every week divisible by 2 at any time

CONFIGURATION VIA .git/config

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.backends
Space-separated list of names of the key-value backends to use. The first listed
is used to store new files by default.

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
Allows configuring which files git annex add and the assistant consider to be large
enough to need to be added to the annex. By default, all files are added to the
annex.

The value is a preferred content expression. See PREFERRED CONTENT for details.

Example:

annex.largefiles = largerthan=100kb and not (include=*.c or include=*.h)

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 acros all repositories.

This config setting is only looked at when git annex numcopies has never been
configured.

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 and month metadata, from the
file's modification date.

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 command uses a bloom filter to determine what data is no
longer used. The default bloom filter is sized to handle up to 500000 keys. If your
repository is larger than that, you can adjust this to avoid git annex unused not
noticing some unused data files. Increasing this will make git-annex unused 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. The default
accuracy is 1000 -- 1 unused file out of 1000 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. To disable these commits, set to false. Then data will only be
committed when running git annex merge (or by automatic merges) or git annex sync.

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 from automatically committing
changes to files in the repository.

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".

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. The cost-command can be
any shell command line.

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-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-sync
If set to false, prevents git-annex sync (and the git-annex assistant) from syncing
with this 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>.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-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-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

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 10Kbye/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 for symmetric encryption. 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.)

annex.ssh-options, annex.rsync-options,
annex.rsync-upload-options, annex.rsync-download-options, annex.bup-split-options,
annex.gnupg-options

Default options to use if a remote does not have more specific options as described
above.

annex.web-options
Options to pass when running wget or curl. For example, to force ipv4 only, set it
to "-4"

annex.quvi-options
Options to pass to quvi when using it to find the url to download for a video.

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.web-download-command
Use to specify a command to run to download a file from the web. (The default is
to use wget or curl.)

In the command line, %url is replaced with the url to download, and %file is
replaced with the file that it should be saved to.

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>.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>.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>.annex-xmppaddress
Used to identify the XMPP address of a Jabber buddy. Normally this is set up by
the git-annex assistant when pairing over XMPP.

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.

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

       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.

       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 efffect.

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,
       either by git commit, git-annex sync, or the git-annex assistant.

AUTHOR

       Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>

       <http://git-annex.branchable.com/>

                                                                                     git-annex(1)

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

EXAMPLES

COMMONLY USED COMMANDS

REPOSITORY SETUP COMMANDS

REPOSITORY MAINTENANCE COMMANDS

QUERY COMMANDS

METADATA COMMANDS

UTILITY COMMANDS

PLUMBING COMMANDS

OPTIONS

MATCHING OPTIONS

PREFERRED CONTENT

SCHEDULED JOBS

CONFIGURATION VIA .git/config

CONFIGURATION VIA .gitattributes

FILES

SEE ALSO

AUTHOR