I've been really looking forward to trying out git annex, an extension (is that the right term here?) to Git by Joey Hess.
In a nutshell, it allows large files to be stored in a git repository, without having to store different versions of those files (though changes can be tracked).
I'm running Ubuntu testing, so I should be able to install it OK. Doh! Looks like it is not available with the repositories I have setup on my notebook, and since I don't want to fuss with that, I'm creating an OpenVZ container to run Debian unstable.
Now that I've installed git annex from the Debian Unstable repository, I've actually used it!
albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/gitannextesting$ ls albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/gitannextesting$ mv /home/albertlash/my-cooking-video.avi ./ albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/gitannextesting$ ls my-cooking-video.avi albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/gitannextesting$ git annex add my-cooking-video.avi add my-cooking-video.avi ok (Recording state in git...) albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/gitannextesting$ git commit -a -m "adding my cooking video to a git repository, whoa" [master d87acee] adding my cooking video to a git repository, whoa 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) create mode 100644 .git-annex/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi.log create mode 120000 my-cooking-video.avi albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/gitannextesting$ ls -lah total 24K drwxr-xr-x 4 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:30 . drwxr-xr-x 4 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:29 .. drwxr-xr-x 9 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:30 .git drwxr-xr-x 2 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:30 .git-annex -rw-r--r-- 1 albertlash albertlash 29 Jan 2 16:28 .gitattributes lrwxrwxrwx 1 albertlash albertlash 108 Jan 2 16:30 my-cooking-video.avi -> .git/annex/objects/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/gitannextesting$
What does WORM mean? Write Once Read Many.
Hmmm.... but let's look into what is going wrong when I try to clone the repository and access the annexed file:
albertlash@dev-49-gl:~$ git clone gitannextesting/.git testclone2 Cloning into testclone2... done. albertlash@dev-49-gl:~$ cd !$ cd testclone2 albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone2$ git annex init "testing 234" init testing 234 [master 2bfdf28] git annex init 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) ok albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone2$ git annex get my-cooking-video.avi get my-cooking-video.avi I was unable to access these remotes: origin Try making some of these repositories available: 610205c6-168d-11e0-8b81-af933623854c -- testing 123 failed git-annex: 1 failed albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone2$ vim .git/config albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone2$ git pull origin master From /home/albertlash/gitannextesting/ * branch master -> FETCH_HEAD Already up-to-date. albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone2$ ls -lah total 24K drwxr-xr-x 4 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:35 . drwxr-xr-x 5 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:35 .. drwxr-xr-x 9 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:36 .git drwxr-xr-x 2 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:35 .git-annex -rw-r--r-- 1 albertlash albertlash 29 Jan 2 16:35 .gitattributes lrwxrwxrwx 1 albertlash albertlash 108 Jan 2 16:35 my-cooking-video.avi -> .git/annex/objects/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone2$ git annex get my-cooking-video.avi get my-cooking-video.avi I was unable to access these remotes: origin Try making some of these repositories available: 610205c6-168d-11e0-8b81-af933623854c -- testing 123 failed git-annex: 1 failed albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone2$
Apparently git-annex does not support file-system based origin remotes? That can't be right because the git annex walkthrough includes the use of a removable USB drive as a remote. I must have missed a step or something, because when I instead cloned the repository using an ssh remote, git annex get my-cooking-video.avi worked fine.
albertlash@dev-49-gl:~$ git clone ssh://localhost/home/albertlash/gitannextesting/ ./testclone3
Cloning into ./testclone3...
remote: Counting objects: 12, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (8/8), done.
remote: Total 12 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (12/12), done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1/1), done.
albertlash@dev-49-gl:~$ cd !$
cd ./testclone3
albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone3$ ls -lah
total 24K
drwxr-xr-x 4 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 ..
drwxr-xr-x 8 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 .git
drwxr-xr-x 2 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 .git-annex
-rw-r--r-- 1 albertlash albertlash 29 Jan 2 16:41 .gitattributes
lrwxrwxrwx 1 albertlash albertlash 108 Jan 2 16:41 my-cooking-video.avi -> .git/annex/objects/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi
albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone3$ git annex init "test clone 123"
init test clone 123 [master fdc4c32] git annex init
1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
ok
albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone3$ ls -lah
total 24K
drwxr-xr-x 4 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 ..
drwxr-xr-x 9 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 .git
drwxr-xr-x 2 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 .git-annex
-rw-r--r-- 1 albertlash albertlash 29 Jan 2 16:41 .gitattributes
lrwxrwxrwx 1 albertlash albertlash 108 Jan 2 16:41 my-cooking-video.avi -> .git/annex/objects/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi
albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone3$ git annex get my-cooking-video.avi
get my-cooking-video.avi (getting UUID for origin...) (copying from origin...)
WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi
3760032 100% 31.73MB/s 0:00:00 (xfer#1, to-check=0/1)
sent 30 bytes received 3760601 bytes 2507087.33 bytes/sec
total size is 3760032 speedup is 1.00
ok
(Recording state in git...)
albertlash@dev-49-gl:~/testclone3$ ls -lah
total 24K
drwxr-xr-x 4 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 ..
drwxr-xr-x 9 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 .git
drwxr-xr-x 2 albertlash albertlash 4.0K Jan 2 16:41 .git-annex
-rw-r--r-- 1 albertlash albertlash 29 Jan 2 16:41 .gitattributes
lrwxrwxrwx 1 albertlash albertlash 108 Jan 2 16:41 my-cooking-video.avi -> .git/annex/objects/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi/WORM:1293985717:3760032:my-cooking-video.avi
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