git-annex-enableremote(1)

NAME
git-annex-enableremote - enables git-annex to use a remote

SYNOPSIS
git annex enableremote name|uuid|desc [param=value ...]

DESCRIPTION
Enables use of an existing remote in the current repository.

This is often used to enable use of a special (non-git) remote, by a different repository than the one in which it was originally created with the initremote command.

It can also be used to explicitly enable a git remote, so that git-annex can store the contents of files there. First run git remote add, and then git annex enableremote with the name of the remote.

When enabling a special remote, specify the same name used when originally creating that remote with git annex initremote. Run git annex enableremote without any name to get a list of special remote names. Or you can specify the uuid or description of the special remote.

Some special remotes may need parameters to be specified every time they are enabled. For example, the directory special remote requires a directory= parameter every time.

This command can also be used to modify the configuration of an existing special remote, by specifying new values for parameters that are usually set when using initremote. (However, some settings such as the as the encryption scheme cannot be changed once a special remote has been created.)

The GPG keys that an encrypted special remote is encrypted with can be changed using the keyid+= and keyid-= parameters. These respectively add and remove keys from the list. However, note that removing a key does NOT necessarily prevent the key's owner from accessing data in the encrypted special remote (which is by design impossible, short of deleting the remote).

One use-case of keyid-= is to replace a revoked key with a new key:

 git annex enableremote mys3 keyid-=revokedkey keyid+=newkey

Also, note that for encrypted special remotes using plain public-key encryption (encryption=pubkey), adding or removing a key has NO effect on files that have already been copied to the remote. Hence using keyid+= and keyid-= with such remotes should be used with care, and make little sense except in cases like the revoked key example above.

If you get tired of manually enabling a special remote in each new clone, you can pass "autoenable=true". Then when git-annex-init(1) is run in a new clone, it will will attempt to enable the special remote. Of course, this works best when the special remote does not need anything special to be done to get it enabled.

(This command also can be used to enable a remote that git-annex has been prevented from using by the remote.<name>.annex-ignore setting.)

SEE ALSO
git-annex(1)

git-annex-initremote(1)

AUTHOR
Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>