Configure the filter and transport

By running:

$ git bigfile config [--global]

Or manually:

First setup the attributes filter settings:

(once after install)
$ git config --global filter.bigfile.clean "git-bigfile filter-clean"
$ git config --global filter.bigfile.smudge "git-bigfile filter-smudge"

Next you need to configure git to tell it where you want to store the large files. There are two options:

1. Storing locally in a filesystem path

2. Storing remotely via sftp (should work with any SSH server - requires paramiko)

Here are the relevant sections that should go either in ~/.gitconfig (for global settings) or in clone/.git/config (for per-repo settings):

[git-bigfile]
    transport = <local|sftp>

# settings for local transport
[git-bigfile "local"]
    path = <local_filesystem_path>

# settings for sftp transport
[git-bigfile "sftp"]
    hostname = <host>
    username = <user>
    path = <path_on_remote_server>

All sftp settings (except path) will be passed to paramiko.SSHClient connect method. You can set: port, password, pkey, key_filename, timeout… Refer to paramiko API.

Setup the .gitattributes file to map extensions to the filter

(in repo - once)
$ echo "*.tar.gz filter=bigfile -crlf" > .gitattributes

Staging files with those extensions will automatically copy them to the bigfile cache area (.git/bigfile) until you run ‘git bigfile push’ wherein they are uploaded. Checkouts that reference bigfile you don’t have yet will try to retrieve them from cache, otherwise they are downloaded when you run ‘git bigfile pull’.