Freeze first sets the file perms, and then runs
freezecontent-command. Thaw runs thawcontent-command before
restoring file permissions. This is in case the freeze command
prevents changing file perms, as eg setting a file immutable does.
Also, changing file perms tends to mess up previously set ACLs.
git-annex init's probe for crippled filesystem uses them, so if file perms
don't work, but freezecontent-command manages to prevent write to a file,
it won't treat the filesystem as crippled.
When the the filesystem has been probed as crippled, the hooks are not
used, because there seems to be no point then; git-annex won't be relying
on locking annex objects down. Also, this avoids them being run when the
file perms have not been changed, in case they somehow rely on
git-annex's setting of the file perms in order to work.
Sponsored-by: Dartmouth College's Datalad project
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 <https://git-annex.branchable.com/>