Let's say you want to distribute some big files to the whole world. You can of course, just drop them onto a website. But perhaps you'd like to use git-annex to manage those files. And as an added bonus, why not let anyone in the world clone your site and use git-annex get!

My site like this is downloads.kitenet.net. Here's how I set it up. --Joey

  1. Set up a web site. I used Apache, and configured it to follow symlinks. Options FollowSymLinks
  2. Put some files on the website. Make sure it works.
  3. git init; git annex init
  4. git config core.sharedrepository world (Makes sure files are always added with permissions that allow everyone to read them.)
  5. git config receive.denyCurrentBranch updateInstead (Makes the working tree update when changes are pushed to it.)
  6. We want users to be able to clone the git repository over http, because git-annex can download files from it over http as well. For this to work, git update-server-info needs to get run on the server after commits or pushes to it. The git post-update hook will take care of this, you just need to enable the hook on the server. mv .git/hooks/post-update.sample .git/hooks/post-update
  7. git annex add; git commit -m added
  8. Make sure users can still download files from the site directly.
  9. Instruct advanced users to clone a http url that ends with the "/.git/" directory. For example, for downloads.kitenet.net, the clone url is https://downloads.kitenet.net/.git/

When users clone over http, and run git-annex, it will automatically learn all about your repository and be able to download files right out of it, also using http.