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version 10.20261005

git-annex 10.20261005 released with these changes

  • Fix mask special remote to not hang after the first file.
  • Fix concurrent import of identical files to not fail with "transfer already in progress".
  • Also fixes possible data corruption when importing identical small files.
  • Use git-credential in more situations when accessing urls that need a password or other authentication, including the web, bittorrent and httpalso special remotes, and git-annex addurl and importfeed.
  • external: Fix DOWNLOAD-URL to support git-credential, which it was already documented to do.
  • external: Support git-credential in TRANSFER-RETRIEVE-URL, CHECKPRESENT-URL, and RETRIEVEIMPORT-URL
  • webdav: Fix a hang when credentials are not available. (Reversion introduced in 10.20260901)
  • export: Display a warning when the user is either in the middle of an export conflict, or has been unsafely writing directly to a remote that is configured with exporttree=yes but without importtree=yes.
  • importfeed: Avoid displaying empty feed titles.
  • Allow retrieval from some importtree=yes special remotes when there is no recorded content identifier.
  • Automate updating remote.name.annexUrl for annex+https servers, by re-probing the http remote's annex.url config when unable to connect to an annex+https server.
  • test, testremote: Support --tap output when built with TastyTap build flag.
  • testremote: Add --ensure-readonly mode.
  • Support bup 0.34, while also still working with previous versions.
  • When built with Botan, also use it for HMAC.
  • NoLLMDependencies: Update for crypton.
  • NoLLMDependencies: Update for tls.
  • Support building with QuickCheck 2.17.
  • Support building with crypton 1.1.0.
Posted
version 10.20260901

git-annex 10.20260901 released with these changes

  • Behavior change: drop --auto --from a remote does not any longer try to drop content that is not known to be present on the remote. This avoids unncessary work and makes it consistent with the behavior of git-annex sync and push.
  • External special remote protocol extended to support IMPORTKEY.
  • git-annex-remote-internetarchive supports --no-content imports.
  • diffdriver: Avoid crashing when git passes an (undocumented) 8th parameter.
  • The preferred content groupwanted expression will no longer consider a groupwanted expression of "" to be set, which allows another group's groupwanted expression to be used instead.
  • Fixed buggy handling of preferred content "balanced=groupname:lackingcopies"
  • Expand preferred content "lackingcopies" and "approxlackingcopies" expression syntax to support "groupname:number"
  • Expand preferred content "copies", "lackingcopies", and "approxlackingcopies" expression syntax to support group limits which can include/exclude multiple groups. Eg "copies=archive+backup-offsite=3"
  • Also expanded --lackingcopies, --approxlackingcopies, and --copies with the same syntax.
  • Expand preferred content "balanced", "fullybalanced", "sizebalanced" and "fullysizebalanced" expression syntax to support group limits as well. Eg "balanced=backup:lackingcopies=archive-offsite"
  • importfeed: Fix reporting and logging of problems with feeds.
  • importfeed: When adding an url, indicate which feed it is from.
  • Fix reversion in 8.20200226 that broke git-annex benchmark --databases
  • Remove the ParallelBuild cabal flag and add cabal.project that enables parallel build by default with ghc 9.8+ and cabal-install 3.12.
  • NoLLMDependencies: Update for warp and magic.
  • git-annex.cabal: Pin magic to 1.1 avoiding build failure on Windows with newer version.
  • stack.yaml: Update to lts-24.52
Posted
version 10.20260717

git-annex 10.20260717 released with these changes

  • External special remote protocol extended to support import. Developers of external special remotes should consider if import makes sense for them and add support.
  • Support importtree=yes with rsync special remotes.
  • Added git-annex-remote-internetarchive special remote that imports an Internet Archive item and serves as an example for how to easily write importtree=yes external special remotes. https://git-annex.branchable.com/tips/how_to_make_a_simple_importtree_special_remote/
  • Added DOWNLOAD-URL extension to the external special remote protocol.
  • git-annex is guaranteed to not contain LLM generated code, and will attempt to remain buildable with versions of dependencies that predate the addition of any LLM generated code. See https://git-annex.branchable.com/no_llm_code/
  • git-annex.cabal: Added NoLLMDependencies build flag.
  • Added stack-NoLLMDependencies.yaml
  • Avoid redundant hash verification after a hash verification fails.
  • Fix build with time-1.15.
Posted
Distribits meeting 2025

We are happy to announce that the call for participation for Distribits 2025 is now online at https://distribits.live/

This meeting is organized by the folks behind git-annex and DataLad. We aim to bring together enthusiasts of tools and workflows in the domain of distributed data.

We are looking forward to October 2025 and to meeting people from everywhere, online and in Düsseldorf.

Registration is open now and until May 1st. Please consider submitting a talk if you are doing something interesting or unusual with git-annex.

Posted
Distribits meeting

We are happy to announce that the call for participation for the first ever Distribits meeting is now online at https://distribits.live/

This meeting is organized by the folks behind git-annex and DataLad. We aim to bring together enthusiasts of tools and workflows in the domain of distributed data.

We are looking forward to April 2024 and to meeting people from everywhere, online and in Düsseldorf.

Registration is open now and until October 15. Please consider submitting a talk if you are doing something interesting or unusual with git-annex.

Posted
2018 git-annex user survey

Similar to the yearly git user survey, there is a 2018 git-annex user survey.

If you use git-annex, please take a few minutes to answer the questions!

Since git-annex is seeing increasing use to manage scientific data, the survey also includes some extra questions about that at the end.

Posted
security fix release

git-annex 6.20180626 is an important security fix release.

See the advisory for details about the security holes fixed in this release.

After upgrading git-annex, you should restart any git-annex assistant processes.

Several changes to git-annex's behavior had to be made as part of the security fixes:

  • A security fix has changed git-annex to refuse to download content from some special remotes when the content cannot be verified with a hash check. In particular URL and WORM keys stored on such remotes won't be downloaded. See the documentation of the annex.security.allow-unverified-downloads configuration for how to deal with this if it affects your files.

  • A security fix has changed git-annex to only support http, https, and ftp URL schemes by default. You can enable other URL schemes, at your own risk, using annex.security.allowed-url-schemes.

  • A related security fix prevents git-annex from connecting to http servers (and proxies) on localhost or private networks. This can be overridden, at your own risk, using annex.security.allowed-ip-addresses.

  • Setting annex.web-options no longer is enough to make curl be used, and youtube-dl is also no longer used by default. See the documentation of annex.security.allowed-http-addresses for details and how to enable them.

  • The annex.web-download-command configuration has been removed, use annex.web-options instead.

Posted
git annex fall of code

Thanks to my recent successful git-annex crowdfunding campaign, $1000 has been set aside to award others for their contributions to git-annex by the end of 2013. This is not a lot of money, but I hope that the reward and recognition will encourage some more people to work on git-annex.

You don't need to know Haskell! You could contribute some interesting and useful special remote hooks, or write better documentation.

On the other hand, if you have learned Haskell, this might be your first chance to make some money with it! Some ideas for things to work on that would be particularly award-worthy:

  • Port git-annex to IOS, using ghc-ios. I don't plan to ever do this myself, but you could make it happen.
  • Get the git-annex assistant working in Windows, building on the existing port to Windows. Otherwise, this is on my roadmap for February.
  • Solve existing bugs or todo items. There are more than I can keep up with.

The amount of the awards will vary depending on the size of the contribution. Since this is getting started later than is ideal, I reserve the right to extend it past the end of the year if I don't get enough participants.

If you'd like to participate in this program, just email me at id@joeyh.name. --Joey

Posted
Presentation at FOSDEM

git-annex will be briefly presented at FOSDEM, on Sunday February 4th at 15:40. Details.

Thanks to Richard Hartmann for making this presentation.

Posted
sharebox: a FUSE filesystem for git-annex

Christophe-Marie Duquesne has just announced Sharebox, a FUSE filesystem relying on git-annex:

What are your goals?  
Seamless synchronization "à la dropbox".  
Ability to use with big binary files such as mp3/movies.  
Entirely decentralized.  
Don't use unnecessary space  
Keep it simple: avoid special VCS commands and keep a filesystem  
interface as much as possible.

While still alpha, this is promising. --Joey

Posted