xvc storage new generic

Purpose

Create a new storage that uses shell commands to send and retrieve cache files. It allows to keep tracked files in any kind of service that can be used command line.

Synopsis

$ xvc storage new generic --help
Add a new generic storage.

⚠️ Please note that this is an advanced method to configure storages. You may damage your repository and local and remote files with incorrect configurations.

Please see https://docs.xvc.dev/ref/xvc-storage-new-generic.html for examples and make necessary backups before continuing.

Usage: xvc storage new generic [OPTIONS] --name <NAME> --init <INIT_COMMAND> --list <LIST_COMMAND> --download <DOWNLOAD_COMMAND> --upload <UPLOAD_COMMAND> --delete <DELETE_COMMAND>

Options:
  -n, --name <NAME>
          Name of the storage.
          
          Recommended to keep this name unique to refer easily.

  -i, --init <INIT_COMMAND>
          Command to initialize the storage. This command is run once after defining the storage.
          
          You can use {URL} and {STORAGE_DIR}  as shortcuts.

  -l, --list <LIST_COMMAND>
          Command to list the files in storage
          
          You can use {URL} and {STORAGE_DIR} placeholders and define values for these with --url and --storage_dir options.

  -d, --download <DOWNLOAD_COMMAND>
          Command to download a file from storage.
          
          You can use {URL} and {STORAGE_DIR} placeholders and define values for these with --url and --storage_dir options.

  -u, --upload <UPLOAD_COMMAND>
          Command to upload a file to storage.
          
          You can use {URL} and {STORAGE_DIR} placeholders and define values for these with --url and --storage_dir options.

  -D, --delete <DELETE_COMMAND>
          The delete command to remove a file from storage You can use {URL} and {STORAGE_DIR} placeholders and define values for these with --url and --storage_dir options

  -M, --processes <MAX_PROCESSES>
          Number of maximum processes to run simultaneously
          
          [default: 1]

      --url <URL>
          You can set a string to replace {URL} placeholder in commands

      --storage-dir <STORAGE_DIR>
          You can set a string to replace {STORAGE_DIR} placeholder in commands

  -h, --help
          Print help (see a summary with '-h')

You can use the following placeholders in your commands. These are replaced with the actual paths in runtime and commands are run with concrete paths.

{URL} : The content of --url option. (default "")
{STORAGE_DIR} Content of --storage-dir option. (default "")
{RELATIVE_CACHE_PATH} The portion of the cache path after .xvc/.
{ABSOLUTE_CACHE_PATH} The absolute local path for the cache element.
{RELATIVE_CACHE_DIR} The portion of directory that contains the file after .xvc/.
{ABSOLUTE_CACHE_DIR} The portion of the local directory that contains the file after .xvc.
{XVC_GUID}: Repository GUID used in storages to differ repository elements
{FULL_STORAGE_PATH}: Concatenation of {URL}{STORAGE_DIR}{XVC_GUID}/{RELATIVE_CACHE_PATH}
{FULL_STORAGE_DIR}: Concatenation of {URL}{STORAGE_DIR}{XVC_GUID}/{RELATIVE_CACHE_DIR}
{LOCAL_GUID_FILE_PATH}: The path that contains guid of the storage locally. Used only in --init option.
{STORAGE_GUID_FILE_PATH}: The path that should have guid of the storage, in storage. Used only in --init option.

Examples

Create a generic storage in the same filesystem

You can create a storage that's using shell commands to send and receive files to another location in the file system.

There are two variables that you can use in the commands. For a storage in the same file system, --url could be blank and --storage-dir could be the location you want to define.

$ xvc storage new-generic
    --url ""
    --storage-dir $HOME/my-xvc-storage
    ...

You need to specify the commands for the following operations:

init: The command that's used to create the directory that will be used as a storage. It should also copy XVC_STORAGE_GUID_FILENAME (currently .xvc-guid) to that location. This file is used to identify the location as an Xvc storage.

$ xvc storage new-generic
      ...
      --init 'mkdir -p {STORAGE_DIR} ; cp {LOCAL_GUID_FILE_PATH} {STORAGE_GUID_FILE_PATH}'
      ...

Note that if the command doesn't contain {LOCAL_GUID_FILE_PATH} and {STORAGE_GUID_FILE_PATH} variables, it won't be run and Xvc will report an error.

list: This operation should list all files under {URL}{STORAGE_DIR}. The list is filtered through a regex that matches the format of the paths. Hence, even the command lists all files in the storage, Xvc will consider only the relevant paths.

All paths should be listed in separate lines.

$ xvc storage new-generic
        ...
        --list 'ls -1 {URL}{STORAGE_DIR}'
        ...

upload: The command that will copy a file from local cache to the storage. Normally, it uses {ABSOLUTE_CACHE_PATH} variable. For the local file system, we also need to create a directory before copying.

$ xvc storage new-generic
     ...
     --upload 'mkdir -p {FULL_STORAGE_DIR} && cp {ABSOLUTE_CACHE_PATH} {FULL_STORAGE_PATH}'
     ...

download: This command will be used to copy from storage to the local cache. It must create local cache directory as well.

$ xvc storage new-generic
    ...
    --download 'mkdir -p {ABSOLUTE_CACHE_DIR} && cp {FULL_STORAGE_PATH} {ABSOLUTE_CACHE_PATH}'
    ...

delete: This operation is used to delete the storage file. It shouldn't touch the local file in any way, otherwise you may lose data.

$ xvc storage new-generic
    ...
    --delete 'rm -f {FULL_STORAGE_PATH} ; rmdir {FULL_STORAGE_DIR}'
    ...

In total, the command you write is the following. It defines all operations of this storage.

$ xvc storage new-generic
    --url ""
    --storage-dir $HOME/my-xvc-storage
    --init 'mkdir -p {STORAGE_DIR} ; cp {LOCAL_GUID_FILE_PATH} {STORAGE_GUID_FILE_PATH}'
    --list 'ls -1 {URL}{STORAGE_DIR}'
    --upload 'mkdir -p {FULL_STORAGE_DIR} && cp {ABSOLUTE_CACHE_PATH} {FULL_STORAGE_PATH}'
    --download 'mkdir -p {ABSOLUTE_CACHE_DIR} && cp {FULL_STORAGE_PATH} {ABSOLUTE_CACHE_PATH}'
    --delete 'rm -f {FULL_STORAGE_PATH} ; rmdir {FULL_STORAGE_DIR}'

Create a storage using rsync

Rsync is found for all popular platforms to copy file contents. Xvc can use it to maintain a storage if you already have a working rsync setup.

We need to define operations for init, upload, download, list and delete with rsync or ssh. Some of the commands need ssh to perform operations, like creating a directory. We'll use placeholders for paths.

As rsync URL format is slightly different than SSH, we will define the commands verbosely.

Suppose you want to use your account at user@example.com to store your Xvc files. You want to store the files under /home/user/my-xvc-storage.

We assume you have configured public key authentication for your account. Xvc doesn't receive user input during storage operations, and can't receive your password during runs.

We first define these as our --url and --storage-dir options.

$ xvc --url user@example.com 
        --storage-dir '/home/user/my-xvc-storage'
        ...

Initialization command must create this directory and copy the storage GUID file to its respective location.

$ xvc 
  ...
  --init "ssh {URL} 'mkdir -p {STORAGE_DIR}' ; rsync -av '{LOCAL_GUID_FILE_PATH}' '{URL}:{STORAGE_GUID_FILE_PATH}'"

Note the use of : in rsync command. As it doesn't support ssh:// URLs currently, we are using a form that's compatible with both ssh and rsync as URL. It may be possible to use && between ssh and rsync commands, but if the first command fails (e.g. the directory already exists), we still want to copy the guid file.

Caveats

Technical Details

The paths in list commands are filtered through a regex. They are matched against {REPO_GUID}/{RELATIVE_CACHE_DIR}/0 pattern and only the {RELATIVE_CACHE_DIR} portion is reported. Any line that doesn't conform to this pattern is ignored. You can any listing command that returns a recursive file list, and only the pattern matching elements are considered.

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