Please describe the problem.
Context: As part of trying to get a non-star topology as described here, I added remotes that are not online and don't have the ignore flag set.
Running git annex info (without additional args) causes git-annex to try to ssh to the enabled git special remote and then git fetch it which takes minutes to time out.
What steps will reproduce the problem?
- Add a reachable but unavailable ip address such as 101.101.101.101 to a local interface for setup
git annex initremote bad type=git location=ssh://101.101.101.101:/tmp/foo- Remove the address from the local interface again (and clear annex ssh caches)
git annex info(hangs)
What version of git-annex are you using? On what operating system?
git-annex version: 10.20230802
build flags: Assistant Webapp Pairing Inotify DBus DesktopNotify TorrentParser MagicMime Feeds Testsuite S3 WebDAV
dependency versions: aws-0.24.1 bloomfilter-2.0.1.2 cryptonite-0.30 DAV-1.3.4 feed-1.3.2.1 ghc-9.4.6 http-client-0.7.13.1 persistent-sqlite-2.13.1.1 torrent-10000.1.3 uuid-1.3.15 yesod-1.6.2.1
key/value backends: SHA256E SHA256 SHA512E SHA512 SHA224E SHA224 SHA384E SHA384 SHA3_256E SHA3_256 SHA3_512E SHA3_512 SHA3_224E SHA3_224 SHA3_384E SHA3_384 SKEIN256E SKEIN256 SKEIN512E SKEIN512 BLAKE2B256E BLAKE2B256 BLAKE2B512E BLAKE2B512 BLAKE2B160E BLAKE2B160 BLAKE2B224E BLAKE2B224 BLAKE2B384E BLAKE2B384 BLAKE2BP512E BLAKE2BP512 BLAKE2S256E BLAKE2S256 BLAKE2S160E BLAKE2S160 BLAKE2S224E BLAKE2S224 BLAKE2SP256E BLAKE2SP256 BLAKE2SP224E BLAKE2SP224 SHA1E SHA1 MD5E MD5 WORM URL X*
remote types: git gcrypt p2p S3 bup directory rsync web bittorrent webdav adb tahoe glacier ddar git-lfs httpalso borg hook external
operating system: linux x86_64
supported repository versions: 8 9 10
upgrade supported from repository versions: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Please provide any additional information below.
$ time git annex info --debug
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.392801032] (Utility.Process) process [588948] read: git ["--git-dir=.git","--work-tree=.","--literal-pathspecs","-c","annex.debug=true","show-ref","git-annex"]
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.393683972] (Utility.Process) process [588948] done ExitSuccess
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.393935272] (Utility.Process) process [588949] read: git ["--git-dir=.git","--work-tree=.","--literal-pathspecs","-c","annex.debug=true","show-ref","--hash","refs/heads/git-annex"]
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.394796062] (Utility.Process) process [588949] done ExitSuccess
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.395083822] (Utility.Process) process [588950] read: git ["--git-dir=.git","--work-tree=.","--literal-pathspecs","-c","annex.debug=true","log","refs/heads/git-annex..3d1d07c0a9dc56682f27ba310660fae82a483487","--pretty=%H","-n1"]
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.396110553] (Utility.Process) process [588950] done ExitSuccess
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.396321043] (Utility.Process) process [588951] read: git ["--git-dir=.git","--work-tree=.","--literal-pathspecs","-c","annex.debug=true","log","refs/heads/git-annex..314451b72f15a36ad620106fce7972c03f729cdf","--pretty=%H","-n1"]
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.397313663] (Utility.Process) process [588951] done ExitSuccess
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.397520583] (Utility.Process) process [588952] read: git ["--git-dir=.git","--work-tree=.","--literal-pathspecs","-c","annex.debug=true","log","refs/heads/git-annex..c7a89661d145e9cd2f019301a49cad3382bdaa4e","--pretty=%H","-n1"]
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.398499344] (Utility.Process) process [588952] done ExitSuccess
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.399090524] (Utility.Process) process [588953] chat: git ["--git-dir=.git","--work-tree=.","--literal-pathspecs","-c","annex.debug=true","cat-file","--batch"]
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.400543744] (Utility.Process) process [588954] call: sh ["-c","ping -c 1 -W 0.3 -n LYKOURGOS.redacted 2>&1 >/dev/null"]
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.704778033] (Utility.Process) process [588954] done ExitFailure 1
[2023-10-01 11:54:30.705468863] (Utility.Process) process [588956] call: sh ["-c","ping -c 1 -W 0.3 -n uranos.redacted 2>&1 >/dev/null"]
[2023-10-01 11:54:31.011500591] (Utility.Process) process [588956] done ExitFailure 1
[2023-10-01 11:54:31.012659161] (Utility.Process) process [588958] read: ssh ["101.101.101.101","-S",".git/annex/ssh/101.101.101.101","-o","ControlMaster=auto","-o","ControlPersist=yes","-n","-T","git-annex-shell 'configlist' '/tmp/foo' '--debug'"]
[2023-10-01 11:56:43.654364825] (Utility.Process) process [588958] done ExitFailure 255
Unable to parse git config from bad
[2023-10-01 11:56:43.654791355] (Utility.Process) process [589323] call: git ["--git-dir=.git","--work-tree=.","--literal-pathspecs","-c","annex.debug=true","fetch","--quiet","bad"]
ssh: connect to host 101.101.101.101 port 22: Connection timed out
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.
[2023-10-01 11:58:56.774415157] (Utility.Process) process [589323] done ExitFailure 128
trusted repositories: 0
semitrusted repositories: 8
00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001 -- web
00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000002 -- bittorrent
080e4b9c-a094-4b74-9825-438b689b665c -- foo2
330a9e48-26c2-43ef-a16b-d798f90dd215 -- URANOS
65cc3cd9-a1a9-490b-ba46-2bc15b195f96 -- LYKOURGOS
8b88ef14-74ef-482f-80ad-74581516ddbb -- atemu@HEPHAISTOS:/tmp/foo4
ef313204-e6a2-4895-b817-66365273854c -- bad [here]
ff295fe4-85eb-4f98-be21-a070314627e9 -- [SOTERIA]
untrusted repositories: 0
transfers in progress: none
available local disk space: 32.53 gigabytes (+1 gigabyte reserved)
local annex keys: 0
local annex size: 0 bytes
annexed files in working tree: [2023-10-01 11:58:56.775992177] (Utility.Process) process [589591] read: git ["--git-dir=.git","--work-tree=.","--literal-pathspecs","-c","annex.debug=true","ls-files","-z","--cached","--others","--","."]
[2023-10-01 11:58:56.776843407] (Utility.Process) process [589591] done ExitSuccess
0
size of annexed files in working tree: 0 bytes
bloom filter size: 32 mebibytes (0% full)
backend usage:
[2023-10-01 11:58:56.777581777] (Utility.Process) process [588953] done ExitSuccess
real 4m26.397s
user 0m0.513s
sys 0m0.038s
An easier way to see this behavior is:
So I'm having difficulty seeing this as a bug in git-annex particularly.
Yes, git-annex has to ssh once to new git remotes, in order to determine their git-annex uuid. git-annex info needs to know what uuids each remote has, so it's certianly right that it does this.
Yes, if that fails git-annex falls back to a git fetch, in order to determine if the remote is unavailable, or if the remote is available but does not have git-annex-shell installed. So it takes twice as long to time out as the usual ssh tcp timeout.
I've had an idea on this: Why not only update UUIDs on (manual) sync/fetch?
This would be in line with how git interacts with regular remotes otherwise too; always requiring an explicit fetch to update its info.
To me it just violates the principle of least surprise to have git-annex try and reach remotes when running something as simple as
info.How about having
git annex info --fastskip this lookup step for remotes where it doesn't know the UUID of yet?git annex infocan already be quite slow in the other steps it takes (counting files, disk space, etc.) in large repos, so it is not so much of a surprise that it hangs a while by default. But if--fastwould make it actually fast by staying completely offline (right?) and skipping the slow local counting steps, this would be logical.--fastthe default and add a--fullflag to show full info. I rarely need it.git-annex does only do uuid discovery of new remotes when it is dealing with remotes. Many git-annex commands do deal with remotes, and that includes
git-annex info, which after all shows a list of repositories. Commands that do not deal with remotes do skip the uuid discovery.Since this kind of configuration can cause many different git-annex (and also git) commands to hang for a while, it doesn't seem very useful to do something specifically to
git-annex infoto deal with it.How about a global
--offlineflag, then? 🙃 It would prevent running anything that has to do with (non-specified) remotes (git pull/push, copying files, fetching UUIDs, etc.), however local things like committing, merging any already presentsyncedbranches, etc. would still run.I can imagine this being helpful in offline kind of situations:
git annex assist|sync --offline OFFLINEDRIVE(although that would already do little with other remotes, except when it's run for the first time to auto-enable other remotes, right?)git annex assist --offlineto save your current changes without git-annex trying to sync with other remotes (internet is bad anyway). Alternative is togit annex addandgit commitmanually.It could go as far as allowing remotes that are on a local path on a non-networked filesystem, but for that to work reliably git-annex would need to go out of its way quite far, so probably a bit much to ask.
To explain my rationale a bit more, I use
git-annex infofor three purposes (descending frequency):git remote)AFAICT, none of these actually interact with remote repositories in any way; they gather information from the local
git-annexbranch and present it in a digestible format. (Apart from the presence check functionality in question of course.) I'd expect these to run these as fast as the CPU and disk allow without any possible interference by the network.Commands like
sync,copyor get must obviously interact with other repositories; it's their primary or even sole purpose. When remote repos are present, I'd fully expect network usage with these and, equally important, timing dependence.(Though I too would love to see an offline flag for these commands like Yann suggested; i.e.
git annex copy --auto --offlineonly copying from and to locally available repos.)I would not expect
infoto have to open any network connections to do its job however; all of the data should be present in thegit-annexbranch afterall. Repo presence is a practical and desirable feature but I wouldn't expect it to be updated on every invocation ofinfoand in fact it isn't: When I unmount a repo and runinfoagain, git-annex still thinks its present. Actually not even asyncwill update that; I'm unsure whether it's even possible to do so?I think I'd prefer an explicit
git annex info --fetchcommand (or perhaps even a new sub command) which runs the repo presence check from scratch for all repos or a specific repo. This stops the regularinfocommand from requiring any networking whatsoever and provides confidence that remotes are actually present when claimed as such after you run it.I solved this problem by having my own dhcp+dns server (dnsmasq) running on the LAN which gives out only 30 second dhcp leases. This way only alive hosts are resolvable. And remotes are accessed not by ip, but by hostname.
Another way to do this is via mdns, but I found that to be very unreliable.