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 current branch 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.

When using git-annex, often remotes are not bare repositories, because it's helpful to add remotes for nearby machines that you want to access the same annexed content. Syncing with a non-bare remote will not normally update the remote's current branch with changes from the local repository. (Unless the remote is configured with receive.denyCurrentBranch=updateInstead.)

To make working with such non-bare remotes easier, sync pushes not only local master to remote master, but also to remote synced/master (and similar with other branches). When git-annex sync is later run on the remote, it will merge the synced/ branches that the repository has received.

Some special remotes contain a tree of files that can be imported and/or exported, and syncing with these remotes behaves differently. See git-annex-import(1) and git-annex-export(1) for details about how importing and exporting work; syncing with such a remote is essentially an import followed by an export. In many cases, importing needs to download content from the remote, and so sync will only import when the --content option is used. (And exporting only ever happens when --content is used.) The remote's remote.<name>.annex-tracking-branch also must be configured, and have the same value as the currently checked out branch.

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.

  When a list of remotes (or remote groups) is provided, it picks from amoung those, otherwise it picks from amoung all remotes.

• --only-annex -a, --not-only-annex

  Only sync the git-annex branch and annexed content with remotes, not other git branches.

  This avoids pulling and pushing other branches, and it avoids committing any local changes. It's up to you to use regular git commands to do that.

  The annex.synconlyannex configuration can be set to true to make this be the default behavior of git-annex sync. To override such a setting, use --not-only-annex.

  When this is combined with --no-content, only the git-annex branch will be synced.

• --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, syncing pulls from remotes and imports from some special 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, syncing pushes changes to remotes and exports to some special 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 annexed files to also be uploaded and downloaded as necessary, to sync the content between the repository and its remotes.

  The annex.synccontent configuration can be set to true to make content be synced by default.

  Normally this tries to get each annexed file that is in the working tree and whose content the local repository does not yet have, from any remote that it's syncing with that has a copy, and then copies each file to every remote that it is syncing with. This behavior can be overridden by configuring the preferred content of repositories. See git-annex-preferred-content(1).

• --content-of=path -C path

  While --content operates on all annexed files, --content-of allows limiting the transferred files to ones in a given location.

  This option can be repeated multiple times with different paths.

• --all -A

  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

  Setting this to "cpus" will run one job per CPU core.

  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.

• --allow-unrelated-histories, --no-allow-unrelated-histories

  Passed on to git merge, to control whether or not to merge histories that do not share a common ancestor.

• --resolvemerge, --no-resolvemerge

  By default, 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.variant-A" and "foo.variant-B". (See git-annex-resolvemerge(1) for details.)

  Use --no-resolvemerge to disable this automatic merge conflict resolution. It can also be disabled by setting annex.resolvemerge to false.

• --backend

  Specifies which key-value backend to use when adding files, or when importing from a special remote.

• --cleanup

  Removes the local and remote synced/ branches, which were created and pushed by git-annex sync. This option prevents all other syncing activities.

  This can come in handy when you've synced a change to remotes and now want to reset your master branch back before that change. So you run git reset and force-push the master branch to remotes, only to find that the next git annex merge or git annex sync brings the changes back. Why? Because the synced/master branch is hanging around and still has the change in it. Cleaning up the synced/ branches prevents that problem.

• Also the git-annex-common-options(1) can be used.

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.