git-annex/doc/git-annex-sync.mdwn
Joey Hess 29e73f76ef
Added remote.<name>.annex-push and remote.<name>.annex-pull
The former can be useful to make remotes that don't get fully synced with
local changes, which comes up in a lot of situations.

The latter was mostly added for symmetry, but could be useful (though less
likely to be).

Implementing `remote.<name>.annex-pull` was a bit tricky, as there's no one
place where git-annex pulls/fetches from remotes. I audited all
instances of "fetch" and "pull". A few cases were left not checking this
config:

* Git.Repair can try to pull missing refs from a remote, and if the local
  repo is corrupted, that seems a reasonable thing to do even though
  the config would normally prevent it.
* Assistant.WebApp.Gpg and Remote.Gcrypt and Remote.Git do fetches
  as part of the setup process of a remote. The config would probably not
  be set then, and having the setup fail seems worse than honoring it if it
  is already set.

I have not prevented all the code that does a "merge" from merging branches
from remotes with remote.<name>.annex-pull=false. That could perhaps
be done, but it would need a way to map from branch name to remote name,
and the way refspecs work makes that hard to get really correct. So if the
user fetches manually, the git-annex branch will get merged, for example.
Anther way of looking at/justifying this is that the setting is called
"annex-pull", not "annex-merge".

This commit was supported by the NSF-funded DataLad project.
2017-04-05 13:22:35 -04:00

126 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown

# NAME
git-annex sync - synchronize local repository with remotes
# SYNOPSIS
git annex sync `[remote ...]`
# DESCRIPTION
This command synchronizes the local repository with its remotes.
The sync process involves first committing any local changes to files
that have previously been added to the repository,
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.
The content of annexed objects is not synced by default, but the --content
option (see below) can make that also be synchronized.
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.
# OPTIONS
* `[remote]`
By default, all remotes are synced, except for remotes that have
`remote.<name>.annex-sync` set to false. By specifying the names
of remotes (or remote groups), you can control which ones to sync with.
* `--fast`
Only sync with the remotes with the lowest annex-cost value configured.
* `--commit`, `--no-commit`
A commit is done by default (unless annex.autocommit is set to false).
Use --no-commit to avoid committing local changes.
* `--message=msg`
Use this option to specify a commit message.
* `--pull`, `--no-pull`
By default, git pulls from remotes. Use --no-pull to disable all pulling.
When `remote.<name>.annex-pull` or `remote.<name>.annex-sync`
are set to false, pulling is disabled for those remotes, and using
`--pull` will not enable it.
* `--push`, `--no-push`
By default, git pushes changes to remotes.
Use --no-push to disable all pushing.
When `remote.<name>.annex-push` or `remote.<name>.annex-sync` are
set to false, or `remote.<name>.annex-readonly` is set to true,
pushing is disabled for those remotes, and using `--push` will not enable
it.
* `--content`, `--no-content`
Normally, syncing does not transfer the contents of annexed files.
The --content option causes the content of files in the work tree
to also be uploaded and downloaded as necessary.
The `annex.synccontent` configuration can be set to true to make content
be synced by default.
Normally this tries to get each annexed file in the work tree
that the local repository does not yet have, and then copies each
file in the work tree to every remote that it is syncing with.
This behavior can be overridden by configuring the preferred content
of a repository. See [[git-annex-preferred-content]](1).
* `--content-of=path` `-C path`
While --content operates on all annexed files in the work tree,
--content-of allows limiting the transferred files to ones in a given
location.
This option can be repeated multiple times with different paths.
* `--all`
This option, when combined with `--content`, makes all available versions
of all files be synced, when preferred content settings allow.
Note that preferred content settings that use `include=` or `exclude=`
will only match the version of files currently in the work tree, but not
past versions of files.
* `--jobs=N` `-JN`
Enables parallel syncing with up to the specified number of jobs
running at once. For example: `-J10`
When there are multiple git remotes, pushes will be made to them in
parallel. Pulls are not done in parallel because that tends to be
less efficient. When --content is synced, the files are processed
in parallel as well.
# SEE ALSO
[[git-annex]](1)
[[git-annex-preferred-content]](1)
# AUTHOR
Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>
Warning: Automatically converted into a man page by mdwn2man. Edit with care.