git-annex/ design/ assistant/ cloud

The syncing design assumes the network is connected. But it's often not in these pre-IPV6 days, so the cloud needs to be used to bridge between LANS.

## The cloud notification problem (done)

Alice and Bob have repos, and there is a cloud remote they both share. Alice adds a file; the assistant transfers it to the cloud remote. How does Bob find out about it?

There are two parts to this problem. Bob needs to find out that there's been a change to Alice's git repo. Then he needs to pull from Alice's git repo, or some other repo in the cloud she pushed to. Once both steps are done, the assistant will transfer the file from the cloud to Bob.

- dvcs-autosync uses xmppp; all repos need to have the same xmpp account configured, and send self-messages. An alternative would be to have different accounts that join a channel or message each other. Still needs account configuration.
- irc could be used. With a default irc network, and an agreed-upon channel, no configuration should be needed. IRC might be harder to get through some firewalls, and is prone to netsplits, etc. IRC networks have reasons to be wary of bots using them. Only basic notifications could be done over irc, as it has little security.
- When there's a ssh server involved, code could be run on it to notify logged-in clients. But this is not a general solution to this problem.
- pubsubhubbub does not seem like an option; its hubs want to pull down a feed over http.

See xmpp for design of git-annex's use of xmpp for push notifications.

## storing git repos in the cloud done for XMPP

Of course, one option is to just use github etc to store the git repo.

Two things can store git repos in Amazon S3: * http://gabrito.com/post/storing-git-repositories-in-amazon-s3-for-high-availability * http://wiki.cs.pdx.edu/oss2009/index/projects/gits3.html

Another option is to not store the git repo in the cloud, but push/pull peer-to-peer. When peers cannot directly talk to one-another, this could be bounced through something like XMPP. This is done for xmpp!

Another option: Use https://spwhitton.name/tech/code/git-remote-gcrypt/ to store git repo encrypted on cloud storage.

OwnCloud

“Google drive (attractive because it's free, only 5 gb tho)”

Just in case somebody also wants their 5GB of disk space in the cloud, consider using some of the owncloud providers. They also offer that amount, but they use free software for everything, using standard protocols (WebDav mostly, because is well supported in all OS).

Git Annex works with them through davfs2, but it would be great if it could support this other program/protocol (OwnCloud/WebDAV) in a more integrated way.

Comment by https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawk9XEh8pxrJxZxIkyK7lWaA7QG1UWt9lgU — Wed Oct 29 14:05:27 2025
is ftp an option?
for people only having ftp-access to there storage.
Comment by https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawn7Oyqusvn0oONFtVhCx5gRAcvPjyRMcBI — Wed Oct 29 14:05:27 2025
re: cloud
Yes, git-annex has to split files for certian providers. I already added support for this as part of my first pass at supporting box.com, see using box.com as a special remote.
Comment by http://joeyh.name/ — Wed Oct 29 14:05:27 2025
Cloud Service Limitations

Hey Joey!

I'm not very tech savvy, but here is my question. I think for all cloud service providers, there is an upload limitation on how big one file may be. For example, I can't upload a file bigger than 100 MB on box.net. Does this affect git-annex at all? Will git-annex automatically split the file depending on the cloud provider or will I have to create small RAR archives of one large file to upload them?

Thanks! James

Comment by https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkq0-zRhubO6kR9f85-5kALszIzxIokTUw — Wed Oct 29 14:05:27 2025
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