[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="http://joeyh.name/"
 ip="209.250.56.64"
 subject="comment 5"
 date="2013-12-05T19:52:52Z"
 content="""
Comment #1 was my initial reaction. A regular direct mode git-annex repository on the mounted NAS share.

I don't quite understand the response to it \"that'd limit me to being on the local network when I want to interact with the repo\". How could git-annex update this NAS if it's not on the local network?

So far, the only reason that has been brought up that makes sense to me is locking. git-annex does use locking in its repository to prevent 2 git-annex commands run at the same time doing conflicting operations. (Lack of that locking could in some cases cause data loss.) I think git-annex's locking is limited entirely to files within the .git directory. So, if a SMB mount for a NAS does not support locking, one approach could be to move the .git directory to local disk, and use `GIT_DIR` to make it be used when operating in that repository. This should get you exactly what was requested. Whether it makes sense or is sufficiently easy to use is another question.

I tend to think that a better use of a NAS in many cases is to put a directory or rsync (if it supports rsync) special remote on the NAS, and have git-annex on the individual client machines. The webapp could have a UI that makes setting up a NAS like that simple, and it would be easy to do.

The use case for having a mirrored directory tree on the NAS seems to be limited to when the clients using it are something that cannot run git-annex itself, but that still cares about filenames, as opposed to just operating on file contents.
"""]]