git-annex/ install/ Linux standalone

If your Linux distribution does not have git-annex packaged up for you, you can either build it fromsource, or you can use a handy prebuilt tarball of the most recent release.

This tarball should work on most Linux systems. It has basically no dependencies and is self-contained.

- x86-64: download tarball
- x86-32: download tarball
- arm: download tarball
- arm64: download tarball
- arm64, for ancient kernels: download tarball

To use, just unpack the tarball, `cd git-annex.linux` and run `./runshell` -- this sets up an environment where you can use `git annex`, as well as everything else included in the bundle.

Alternatively, you can unpack the tarball, and add the directory to your `PATH`, or symlink the programs in the directory to a directory in your PATH. This lets you use `git annex`, without overriding your system's own versions of git, etc.

The arm version can be installed on NAS devices and other embedded ARM linux systems.

- Synology NAS and git annex
- forum thread

The arm64 build for ancient kernels is for Linux kernels such as 4.19, which is still in use on Android phones.

## autobuilds

An hourly autobuild is also available, hosted by Joey:

- x86-64: download tarball (build logs)
- x86-32: download tarball (build logs)
- arm64: download tarball (build logs)
- arm64, for ancient kernels: download tarball (build logs)
- arm: download tarball (build logs)

## download security

All the download links above use https for security. For added security, see verifying downloads.

## building it yourself

This entails building git-annex from source, so you will first need to get that working, see fromsource for some of the details.

In git-annex's source tree, run `make linuxstandalone`. This will build git-annex from source, and then build the tarball bundle, into eg `tmp/git-annex-standalone-amd64.tar.gz`

This build process is done on a Debian system, and it needs to use `dpkg` to examine the host system.

## technical details

The way those tarballs work is described in joeyh's blog.

comment 8

Unfortunately I was on vacation when that breakage happened, so I don't remember the details, but it does seem to have been fixed.

Comment by joey — Tue Jul 22 18:11:47 2025
standalone builds apparently not deployed

Yup:

[[!format bash """ ❯ git annex info git-annex/linux/current/git-annex-standalone-amd64.tar.gz file: git-annex/linux/current/git-annex-standalone-amd64.tar.gz size: 62.24 megabytes key: SHA256E-s62243866--e127f7cbb28d116cb34a22321b3a8db469d73174b23869c122d9425066729ea5.tar.gz present: false ❯ git annex whereis git-annex/linux/current/git-annex-standalone-amd64.tar.gz whereis git-annex/linux/current/git-annex-standalone-amd64.tar.gz (1 copy) 4f2108b9-5561-40a1-8923-b0b683b3b898 -- joey@kite:~/lib/downloads ok """]]

Comment by nobodyinperson — Tue Jul 22 18:11:47 2025
comment 6
https://downloads.kitenet.net/git-annex/linux/current only contains .sig files. so the link above are broken.
Comment by Basile.Pinsard — Tue Jul 22 18:11:47 2025
building the standalone distribution on CentOS
"This build process is done on a Debian system, and it needs to use dpkg to examine the host system" -- would it be hard to make this work on CentOS? (For building the standalone tarball as part of building the conda-forge package, where the build process uses this docker image.)
Comment by Ilya_Shlyakhter — Tue Jul 22 18:11:47 2025
comment 4
I've opened a todo, add ancient armel build
Comment by joey — Tue Jul 22 18:11:47 2025
Ancient variant for Armel
I have a NAS running Linux Kernel 2.6.36 unfortunately not possible updating it. The newest standalone build complains about "kernel too old". Is there a variant somewhere for ancient armel also like for x86_32? Or how can I build one?
Comment by nasava — Tue Jul 22 18:11:47 2025
comment 2

The arm binaries are ARMv6; they're built on a Debian armel system.

Obviously there is a lot of variation in ARM instructions sets. Like Debian, we're shooting for lowest common denominator here.

(Note: I'm going to be moving your comment and this one to the place you should have posted it...)

Comment by http://joeyh.name/ — Tue Jul 22 18:11:47 2025
Are the ARM binaries ARMv6 or ARMv7?
I'm trying to run git-annex on my Raspberry PI, which is an ARMv6 device. But I can't tell if the prebuilt binaries are ARMv6 or ARMv7. The binaries seem to work, but it's not clear to me how early I should expect things to fail if they're compiled for ARMv7.
Comment by https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmUJBh1lYmvfCCiGr3yrdx-QhuLCSRnU5c — Tue Jul 22 18:11:47 2025
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