I do the following:

    # create repo
    git init repo
    git -C ./repo annex init --version=6
    git -C ./repo config annex.thin true
    # add big file
    cd repo
    cp /tmp/bigfile . # 12GB file on system with 8GB RAM
    git annex add bigfile
    # commit
    git commit -m 'msg'

On the commit, I get "fatal: Out of memory, realloc failed". I found out that "git add" leads to the same error with big files, so I use "git annex add".

I do this on an NFS4 disk. The same on the local EXT4 disk works.

I have noticed that annex creates a link for the file on EXT4 but not on NFS4. This seems suspicious.

Version information:

    git version
    git version 2.16.2

    git annex version
    build flags: Assistant Webapp Pairing S3(multipartupload)(storageclasses) WebDAV Inotify DBus DesktopNotify ConcurrentOutput TorrentParser MagicMime Feeds Testsuite
    dependency versions: aws-0.16 bloomfilter-2.0.1.0 cryptonite-0.23 DAV-1.3.1 feed-0.3.12.0 ghc-8.0.2 http-client-0.5.7.1 persistent-sqlite-2.6.3 torrent-10000.1.1 uuid-1.3.13 yesod-1.4.5
    key/value backends: SHA256E SHA256 SHA512E SHA512 SHA224E SHA224 SHA384E SHA384 SHA3_256E SHA3_256 SHA3_512E SHA3_512 SHA3_224E SHA3_224 SHA3_384E SHA3_384 SKEIN256E SKEIN256 SKEIN512E SKEIN512 BLAKE2B256E BLAKE2B256 BLAKE2B512E BLAKE2B512 BLAKE2B160E BLAKE2B160 BLAKE2B224E BLAKE2B224 BLAKE2B384E BLAKE2B384 BLAKE2S256E BLAKE2S256 BLAKE2S160E BLAKE2S160 BLAKE2S224E BLAKE2S224 BLAKE2SP256E BLAKE2SP256 BLAKE2SP224E BLAKE2SP224 SHA1E SHA1 MD5E MD5 WORM URL
    remote types: git gcrypt p2p S3 bup directory rsync web bittorrent webdav adb tahoe glacier ddar hook external
    local repository version: 6
    supported repository versions: 3 5 6
    upgrade supported from repository versions: 0 1 2 3 4 5
    operating system: linux x86_64

