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git-annex-sync(1) General Commands Manual git-annex-sync(1)

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.

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.
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 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.
A commit is done by default (unless annex.autocommit is set to false).
Use --no-commit to avoid committing local changes.
Use this option to specify a commit message.
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.
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.
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.
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, and then copies each file to every remote that it is syncing with. This behavior can be overridden by configuring the preferred content of a repository. See git-annex-preferred-content(1).
When remote.<name>.annex-tracking-branch is configured for a special remote and that branch is checked out, syncing with --content will import changes from the remote, merge them into the branch, and export any changes that have been committed to the branch back to the remote. With --no-content, imports will only be made from special remotes that support importing without transferring files, and no exports will be done. See git-annex-import(1) and git-annex-export(1) for details about how importing and exporting work.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Removes the local and remote synced/ branches, which were created and pushed by git-annex sync.
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.

SEE ALSO

git-annex(1)

git-annex-preferred-content(1)

AUTHOR

Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>