I want to put my photos into a git-annex repository, syncing it with my girlfriends computer and our NAS. If possible, I'd like to be able to add files to the NAS and have them synced, so I guess a special remote doesn't work here.
Unfortunately, git-annex doesn't run on my NAS directly (yet), so I thought of mounting the NAS with CIFS, and creating an annex there that syncs with the local ones. While this seems to work fine with one computer, I wonder what will happen if I mount the Samba share on my and my girlfriend's computer at the same time.
In theory, the NAS supports Samba Unix extensions which includes POSIX locking, but a weird bug that prevents you from removing a named pipe from Samba, making git-annex init fail (sent a bug report to Synology). When I disable Unix extensions it works. It then detects a crippled file system though.
Any thoughts?
After reading trough this again, I'd like to rephrase my question.
Is it safe if two independent assistants access the same repository at the same time (assuming locking works)?
But, much more important, a big thanks for creating git-annex! I'm using it successfully to keep my files in sync at home and at work and I think it is a really amazing tool. So thanks for the hard work!
If you're asking if you can run two git-annex assistant programs inside the same repository at the same time, the answer is no. Assuming locking works (grin), the second program will detect the first is running and refuse to start.
If your question is, can two or more git-annex assistant or other programs, running in separate repositories, access files in the same remote safely at the same time, the answer is yes! You can, for that matter, run multiple git-annex commands at the same time in the same repository, and they're also entirely safe, thanks to some locking it does.
You should post your story to day 288 success stories!