git-annex

git-annex is a distributed file synchronization system written in Haskell. It aims to solve the problem of sharing and synchronizing collections of large files independent from a commercial service or even a central server.

History

git-annex development began in 2010.^[2] In 2012/13 the development was funded through a kickstarter campaign.^[3] The main development of this year was the git-annex assistant. This component runs in the background to automate the synchronization of repositories.

The next crowd funding campaign for 2013/14 was organized over a self hosted platform.^[4]

Design

git-annex uses git to index files but does not store them in the git history. Instead a Symbolic link representing and linking to the probably large file is committed. git-annex manages a content-addressable storage for the files under its control. A separate git branch logs the location of every file. Thus users can clone a git-annex repository and then decide for every file whether to make it locally available.

Availability

git-annex is available^[5] many ways and notably part of the following distributions

• Debian^[6]
• Ubuntu^[7]
• Fedora^[8]
• FreeBSD^[9]
• ArchLinux^[10]
• NixOS
• Gentoo

References