git-annex/doc/design/assistant/pairing.mdwn
2012-09-07 14:54:00 -04:00

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For git-annex to be able to clone its repo to another host, it'd be good to
have some way of pairing devices.
It could work like this:
1. Prompt for the hostname, or do avahi local machine discovery, or use
ZeroMQ with IP multicast, or use haskell's `network-multicast`. That
last option seems to work best!
2. Let user pick host to pair with. Somehow authenticate that this is
the host they expected to pair with, and not an imposter. Probably
have the users enter a shared secret and use it to HMAC the ssh public
keys.
3. Exchange a hostname or IP address with the pair. Ideally,
use `.local`, as it'll work as long as both are on the same subnet.
If mDNS is not available, regular DNS or IP addresses might have
to be used, but will result in a more fragile pairing. Or perhaps
the assistant could broadcast itself queries for current IP addresses,
if connecting to a paired host fails.
4. Enable the two hosts to ssh to one-another and run git-annex shell.
(Set up per-host ssh keys.)
5. Pull over a clone of the repository.
6. Start [[syncing]].
Also look into the method used by
<https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-a-device-to-firefox-sync>