This special remote type accesses annexed files stored in a borg repository.

Unlike most special remotes, git-annex cannot be used to store annexed files in this special remote. You store files by using borg create to store the git-annex repository in borg. Then git-annex sync will learn about the annexed files that are stored in the borg repository.

setup example

# borg init --encryption=keyfile /path/to/borgrepo
# git annex initremote borg type=borg borgrepo=/path/to/borgrepo
# borg create /path/to/borgrepo::{now} `pwd`
# git annex sync borg

configuration

These parameters can be passed to git annex initremote to configure the remote:

  • borgrepo - The location of a borg repository, eg a path, or user@host:path for ssh access.

  • subdir - The subdirectory within the borg repository where git-annex should look for annex object files. The default is to look through the whole borg repository.

    This is useful to avoid learning about annex objects in the borg repository that belong to unrelated git-annex repositories. It can also make syncing faster.

  • appendonly - You could use borg to delete content from the repository at any time, so this defaults to "no", which makes the remote be untrusted. If you set to "yes", you must take care to avoid using commands like borg delete, borg prune with the borg repository.

avoid archive name reuse

Borg repositories contain archives, and git-annex assumes that, once created, the content of an archive does not change. So if you delete an archive and then create a new archive with the same name, it will confuse git-annex about what is contained in the borg repository. So will using borg recreate to remove files from an archive.