I now have this topology working:
assistant ---> {bare repo, special remote} <--- assistant
And, I think, also this one:
+----------- bare repo --------+
v v
assistant ---> special remote <--- assistant
While before with assistant <---> assistant connections, both sides got
location info updated after a transfer, in this topology, the bare repo
*might* get its location info updated, but the other assistant has no way to
know that it did. And a special remote doesn't record location info,
so transfers to it won't propigate out location log changes at all.
So, for these to work, after a transfer succeeds, the git-annex branch
needs to be pushed. This is done by recording a synthetic commit has
occurred, which lets the pusher handle pushing out the change (which will
include actually committing any still journalled changes to the git-annex
branch).
Of course, this means rather a lot more syncing action than happened
before. At least the pusher bundles together very close together pushes,
somewhat. Currently it just waits 2 seconds between each push.
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.
For documentation, see doc/ or <http://git-annex.branchable.com/>
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