Revision storage question

[John Arbash Meinel]

Angela wrote:
> On 2/8/07, John Arbash Meinel <john at arbash-meinel.com> wrote:
>>

...

> Regarding the working trees in locations shared between people -- do you
> mean that it would be better to have no working trees at all at the server
> computer? It's being used as the file server as well, hence the actual
> documents are there. I've currently set the root of the files partition to
> be shared across the network and users can modify contents (I assumed the
> latter would be needed for remote checkout commits). I don't mean for these
> files to be visible anywhere except for the LAN I've set up -- in that view
> are the access rights a possible problem?

Access rights are always a possible problem, but it sounds like you have
it under control. (People will need to create the files so that others
can read/write them, so the .bzr/ control files should be fine)

...

>> The difference really comes in if you wanted to start accessing these
>> files from over the internet (rather than over the local network).
>> Because there you wouldn't really want to have an open Windows share.
>> And in those circumstances I would recommend not having working trees,
>> and using bzr+ssh over sftp.
> 
> 
> I see, I see. So if I wanted to access my files over the 'net, that's
> when I
> need the smart server? And not having working trees. Hmm, would it be
> possible to change all these at a later date to that sort of format? It's
> not important for me (at least right now) to be able to access my files
> if I
> have no connection to my LAN, although that need *might* change at a later
> date -- though not very likely.
> 
> xx Angela


You don't have to use a smart server. You can access it over a number of
protocols (sftp, ftp, http). The only major difference is that access is
usually slower, and when you push new revisions, the working tree isn't
kept up to date. This will be shown by 'bzr status', and you will also
get an out-of-date message if you try to commit.

You simply run 'bzr update' in the working tree to bring it back up to date.

Also, you can remove a working tree with "bzr remove-tree". So yes, you
can always switch to a treeless repository later. (It is a little
trickier to change the default for new branches, but still not very hard)

John
=:->