The Internet Archive allows members to upload collections using an Amazon S3 compatible API, and this can be used with git-annex's S3 support.
So, you can locally archive things with git-annex, define remotes that correspond to "items" at the Internet Archive, and use git-annex to upload your files to there. Of course, your use of the Internet Archive must comply with their terms of service.
A nice added feature is that whenever git-annex sends a file to the
Internet Archive, it records its url, the same as if you'd run git annex
addurl
. So any users who can clone your repository can download the files
from archive.org, without needing any login or password info. This makes
the Internet Archive a nice way to publish the large files associated with
a public git repository.
webapp setup
Just go to "Add Another Repository", pick "Internet Archive", and you're on your way.
basic setup
Sign up for an account, and get your access keys here: http://www.archive.org/account/s3.php
# export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=blahblah
# export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=xxxxxxx
Specify host=s3.us.archive.org
when doing initremote
to set up
a remote at the Archive. This will enable a special Internet Archive mode:
Encryption is not allowed; you are required to specify a bucket name
rather than having git-annex pick a random one; and you can optionally
specify x-archive-meta*
headers to add metadata as explained in their
documentation.
# git annex initremote archive-panama type=S3 \
host=s3.us.archive.org bucket=panama-canal-lock-blueprints \
x-archive-meta-mediatype=texts x-archive-meta-language=eng \
x-archive-meta-title="original Panama Canal lock design blueprints"
initremote archive-panama (Internet Archive mode) ok
# git annex describe archive-panama "a man, a plan, a canal: panama"
describe archive-panama ok
Then you can annex files and copy them to the remote as usual:
# git annex add photo1.jpeg --backend=SHA256E
add photo1.jpeg (checksum...) ok
# git annex copy photo1.jpeg --fast --to archive-panama
copy (to archive-panama...) ok
Once a file has been stored on archive.org, it cannot be (easily) removed from it. Also, git-annex whereis will tell you a public url for the file on archive.org. (It may take a while for archive.org to make the file publically visibile.)
Note the use of the SHA256E backend when adding files. That is the default backend used by git-annex, but even if you don't normally use it, it makes most sense to use the WORM or SHA256E backend for files that will be stored in the Internet Archive, since the key name will be exposed as the filename there, and since the Archive does special processing of files based on their extension.
publishing only one subdirectory
Perhaps you have a repository with lots of files in it, and only want to publish some of them to a particular Internet Archive item. Of course you can specify which files to send manually, but it's useful to configure preferred content settings so git-annex knows what content you want to store in the Internet Archive.
One way to do this is using the "public" repository type.
git annex enableremote archive-panama preferreddir=panama
git annex wanted archive-panama standard
git annex group archive-panama public
Now anything in a "panama" directory will be sent to that remote,
and anything else won't. You can use git annex copy --auto
or the
assistant and it'll do the right thing.
When setting up an Internet Archive item using the webapp, this configuration is automatically done, using an item name that the user enters as the name of the subdirectory.