Show HN: Git-remote-dropbox – use Dropbox as a true Git server

http://www.anishathalye.com/2015/08/19/git-remote-dropbox/

by anishathalye • 11 years ago

174 60 11 years ago

dr4g0n• 11 years ago

Looks good, I had previously used Dropbox for personal repositories, but now I might try using them for shared ones.

It seems from a quick read of the design document [1] that the important thing here is the updating of refs using a compare-and-swap, ensuring that the synchronisation issues that typically occur with using Dropbox as a remote cannot occur. Objects are always* safe from this since the file names are SHA1 hashes.

Edit: The only downside I can see with this is that the remote will never have garbage collection take place, so unreachable objects will continue to take up space indefinitely.

[1] https://github.com/anishathalye/git-remote-dropbox/blob/mast...

phs2501• 11 years ago

Also since packs are not used (the design document says it stores all objects as loose objects) there is no delta compression. This won't be usable for large repos with lots of history.

anishathalye4• 11 years ago

Yep, no packing and no delta compression. I haven't yet thought of a good way of doing that entirely client side. (If you can think of anything, please let me know!)

The target use case is small personal and group projects.

With the current design, it won't scale that well to large repos with lots of history. The initial clone will take a while. However, individual fetches or pushes after that shouldn't take that long unless there is a ton that changes.

anishathalye4• 11 years ago

Yes, you're right, there is no garbage collection on the remote. (I should probably add that to the design doc.)

I don't know a way of doing it client side that is concurrency-safe. Perhaps I'll write a separate script that will do remote GC, but will require that you manually ensure that nobody is modifying the repository concurrently.

tlarkworthy3• 11 years ago

bare git on dropbox is not dangerous in a multi user setup. I tested it a few years ago, the conflicts are minor annoyances but never destructive nor silent.

http://edinburghhacklab.com/2012/11/when-git-on-dropbox-conf...

leni536• 11 years ago

I think it's mostly not dangerous. The object store shouldn't be dangerous at all. Updating refs concurrently however... I think it is dangerous.

tlarkworthy3• 11 years ago

It's not, you get a conflict, so someone loses their last ref manipulation and you have to clear the conflict and update the ref again. You have a backup of the repo anyway as you cloned from it. So basically someone has to push again after the repo breaks (this is a bare repo in Dropbox with a local clone setup)

InclinedPlane• 11 years ago

That's what I use for my own projects. If I was working with other people I'd probably just setup gitlab (if not using github), with VPS providers these days setting something like that up is marginally more expensive than free.

viraptor• 11 years ago

Just curious... Given that we have gitlab, bitbucket, assembla, etc. which provide free private git hosting and even more services if you don't need private repo - why would anyone host on dropbox?

ics• 11 years ago

Some ideas...

- Mobile apps: ability to browse/create super easily from your iPhone or whatever using any app that integrates with Dropbox

- Storage space: though not always written in stone, most git hosts expect code and prefer you keep your media, if its heavy, elsewhere. Users of git-annex, largefile, etc. benefit from this.

- Collaboration: lots of people use Dropbox, not all of them need to use git (or at least, not all the time). See above.

Unfortunately, after reading the readme I see this: "Do not directly interact with Git repositories in your Dropbox folder - always use git-remote-dropbox. If you're using the Dropbox client to sync files, it's a good idea to use selective sync and disable syncing of the folder containing the repository to avoid any unexpected conflicts, just in case." So it's not as rosy as my above points hoped for.

amalag• 11 years ago

This is also really useful

How to Use S3 as a Private Git Repository

http://www.fancybeans.com/blog/2012/08/24/how-to-use-s3-as-a...

tacos5• 11 years ago

For a few pennies more (or less) a month you can use AWS CodeCommit. https://aws.amazon.com/codecommit/pricing/

bchallenor• 11 years ago

Apparently CodeCommit is a new feature (last couple of months?). I had no idea it existed - thanks!

zkhalique• 11 years ago

How about the other way around ... using git + node watch plugin to make a owncloud dropbox?

andreasklinger• 11 years ago

I am a bit confused.

This only represents server side right?

You are still not expected to leave the working directory in the Dropbox folder?

Reason i ask - Dropbox's client is very inefficient when it comes to small files.

anishathalye4• 11 years ago

This is a remote helper meant to interact with a git repo hosted on Dropbox - it runs entirely on the client side - there's no special git-specific code that the Dropbox servers run.

Correct, you're not expected to leave the working directory in a Dropbox folder. In fact, that's a bad idea (for the reasons explained in the blog post / readme).

It's also recommended to selective sync out the repository directory so the desktop client doesn't touch the files at all.

objectivefs• 11 years ago

As anishathalye said you probably don't want to keep your git working directory on Dropbox. If you want to share a git working directory between machines, you can use a shared filesystem such as our ObjectiveFS (https://objectivefs.com). Note that if you use git with an OSXFUSE filesystem you currently need to add the "--quiet" option to work around an issue with signals (https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/issues/213).

cryptograph• 11 years ago

Why not just use BitBucket? It's free and reliable and is meant as a repository manager. And trusted like GitHub, but BitBucket also gives you unlimited public AND private repos. Did I mention free?

xeromal• 11 years ago

I thought it gave you only 5 private repos?

xasos• 11 years ago

No, that's what you get with the GitHub student account (free for any student with a .edu/school email). BitBucket offers unlimited repositories for free.

anishathalye4• 11 years ago

BitBucket limits you to 5 unique collaborators over all your private repositories. Maybe that's what you were thinking of?

mbel• 11 years ago

Considering superior alternatives like mentioned BitBucket, I don't think I will use this project any time soon. But I'm very glad that some has created it. For me it demonstrates that git is flexible enough to support hosting/sharing solutions that are not standard today. I take it as a sign of git being a least a bit futureproof.

But aside from that, do all hacks have to be practical?

jesseendahl• 11 years ago

BitBucket has no 2FA, both GitHub and Dropbox do.

fjarlq• 11 years ago

ETA for BitBucket's 2FA support is less than 6 weeks:

https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issues/5811/support-two-fa...

kolev• 11 years ago

For small private repos, GitHub makes the per-GB price very high compared to Dropbox.

rplnt• 11 years ago

Well, it's from Atlassian for one :)

tonyblundell• 11 years ago

This could be useful as a backup.

I don't know about BitBucket, but GitHub has suffered downtime before. If you have a second remote on Dropbox, you can also get to your files there and wherever it's automatically syncing them should your VCS go down.

tcdent2• 11 years ago

This seems like something Dropbox should be aware of, and actively trying to fix.

tcdent2• 11 years ago

My point being, if there is such demand from your customers for a particular feature that they hack it together themselves, or endure what commenters have expressed to be "tolerable strange behavior", then you should probably think about offering a solution.

Is it right to host your git repositories in a Dropbox folder? Probably not. Is it their fault? No. Is there sufficient evidence that quite a few people are trying to do it? Yes: https://www.google.com/search?q=dropbox+git

Unless, of course, they've become too big to care.

Vecrios• 11 years ago

I'm still not sold on the idea of using Dropbox and Git on the same folder. Would anyone mind explaining the benefits of having such setup?

dkarapetyan• 11 years ago

Or you know pay $5 and host your git repositories at Digital Ocean or some other VPS provider. I honestly don't get this obsession of tacking on git on top of things like Dropbox. If you're technical enough to understand git then you're technical enough to set up your own hosting server. Just skip the middleman.

Argorak• 11 years ago

If you're technical enough to understand git then you're technical enough to set up your own hosting server.

I don't agree. Many people use GIT without having any knowledge of the work necessary to keep a server secure all year around.

Amateur git usage is definitely a thing and not necessarily a small one.

snnn• 11 years ago

Why not just use visual studio online, it's free for unlimited private repos.

lclemente• 11 years ago

Shameless plug: If you want the data in dropbox encrypted, try https://github.com/lucas-clemente/git-cr :) I think I've also solved most of the concurrency problems, but haven't tested it yet.

forgotmypassw• 11 years ago

We keep all of our files in Dropbox.

Wrong.

gingerlime• 11 years ago

Seeing all those "why not use X instead" makes me wonder why it appears to be a binary option? Git lets you use ALL of them. You can push to multiple remotes and even automate things with hooks if you need to. Perfect for backup and redundancy in case any single remote is unavailable...

rcarmo4• 11 years ago

Hmmm. I've been storing Git repos in Dropbox for... ages. Haven't tried sharing them, but for a single user I see no need to have an additional piece of software.

I am, however, quite interested in the potential for business-related repos - I guess it all depends on the authentication and transport mechanisms (I assume this will be using Dropbox's auth and TLS API)?

hellofunk• 11 years ago

Have you used DB for your repos where you work on different machines that are not always on, and therefore there is a sync delay occasionally? And then get conflicted syncs on DB's end as a result when you try to interact with the repo before syncing is done across all machines? There are many headaches to just putting a git repo in DB and forgetting about it -- the one possible exception if you are only working on one machine all the time, with zero collaborators.

rcarmo4• 11 years ago

I use DB across many machines, some "permanently" on, two laptops and a (sporadically on) home desktop. Never had a conflict I couldn't recover from - and the 5-10 minutes some of the machines take to finish syncing are usually best spent catching up on e-mail rather than coding.

stonewhite• 11 years ago

I used to mock people for using Dropbox for deployment (by configuring the document root as the dropbox folder).

I hope they won't discover if I start using this.

Show HN: Git-remote-dropbox – use Dropbox as a true Git server

Related Stories