# NAME

git-annex initcluster - initialize a new cluster

# SYNOPSIS

git-annex initcluster name [description]

# DESCRIPTION

A git-annex repository can provide access to its remotes as a unified
cluster. This allows other repositories to access the cluster as a remote,
with uploads and downloads distributed amoung the nodes of the cluster,
according to their preferred content settings.

This command initializes a new cluster with the specified name. If no
description is provided, one will be set automatically.

Once a cluster is initialized, the next step is to add nodes to it.
To make a remote be a node of the cluster, configure 
`git config remote.name.annex-cluster-node`, setting it to the
name of the cluster.

Finally, run `git-annex updatecluster` to record the cluster configuration
in the git-annex branch. That tells other repositories about the cluster.

Example:

    git-annex initcluster mycluster
    git config remote.foo.annex-cluster-node mycluster
    git config remote.bar.annex-cluster-node mycluster
    git config remote.baz.annex-cluster-node mycluster
    git-annex updatecluster

Suppose, for example, that remote "bigserver" has had those commands run in
it. Then after pulling from "bigserver", git-annex will know about an
additional remote, "bigserver-mycluster", which can be used like any other
remote but is an interface to the cluster as a whole. The individual cluster
nodes will also be proxied as remotes, eg "bigserver-foo".

Clusters can only be accessed via ssh.

# OPTIONS

* The [[git-annex-common-options]](1) can be used.

# SEE ALSO

[[git-annex]](1)
[[git-annex-updatecluster]](1)
[[git-annex-preferred-content]](1)
[[git-annex-updateproxy]](1)

# AUTHOR

Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>

Warning: Automatically converted into a man page by mdwn2man. Edit with care.