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When there's just 1 client repo, and a transfer repo is created, its preferred content will now make it prefer all content in the client, even though there's no other client yet to transfer it to. Presumably, another client will be created eventually. It might even already exist, and the transfer repo will be used to connect up with it.
85 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
85 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
git-annex tries to ensure that the configured number of [[copies]] of your
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data always exist, and leaves it up to you to use commands like `git annex
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get` and `git annex drop` to move the content to the repositories you want
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to contain it. But sometimes, it can be good to have more fine-grained
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control over which repositories prefer to have which content. Configuring
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this allows `git annex get --auto`, `git annex drop --auto`, etc to do
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smarter things.
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Currently, preferred content settings can only be edited using `git
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annex vicfg`. Each repository can have its own settings, and other
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repositories may also try to honor those settings. So there's no local
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`.git/config` setting it.
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The idea is that you write an expression that files are matched against.
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If a file matches, it's preferred to have its content stored in the
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repository. If it doesn't, it's preferred to drop its content from
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the repository (if there are enough copies elsewhere).
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The expressions are very similar to the file matching options documented
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on the [[git-annex]] man page. At the command line, you can use those
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options in commands like this:
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git annex get --include='*.mp3' --and -'(' --not --in=archive -')'
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The equivilant preferred content expression looks like this:
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include=*.mp3 and (not in=archive)
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So, just remove the dashes, basically.
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## file matching
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Note that while --include and --exclude match files relative to the current
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directory, preferred content expressions always match files relative to the
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top of the git repository. Perhaps you put files into `archive` directories
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when you're done with them. Then you could configure your laptop to prefer
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to not retain those files, like this:
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exclude=*/archive/*
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## standard expressions
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git-annex comes with some standard preferred content expressions, that can
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be used with repositories that are in some pre-defined groups. To make a
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repository use one of these, just set its preferred content expression
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to "standard", and put it in one of these groups:
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### client
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All content is preferred, unless it's in a "archive" directory.
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`exclude=*/archive/*`
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### transfer
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Use for repositories that are used to transfer data between other
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repositories, but do not need to retain data themselves. For
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example, a repository on a server, or in the cloud, or a small
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USB drive used in a sneakernet.
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The preferred content expression for these causes them to get and retain
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data until all clients have a copy.
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`not (inallgroup=client or not copies=client:2) and exclude=*/archive/*`
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The "not copies=client:2" part of the above handles the case where
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there is only one client repository. It makes a transfer repository
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speculatively prefer content in this case, even though it as of yet
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has nowhere to transfer it to. Presumably, another client repository
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will be added later.
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### archive
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All content is preferred, unless it's already been archived somewhere else.
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`not copies=archive:1`
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Note that if you want to archive multiple copies (not a bad idea!),
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you should instead configure all your archive repositories with a
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version of the above preferred content expression with a larger
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number of copies.
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### backup
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All content is preferred.
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