NAME
mtn - distributed version control system
SYNOPSIS
mtn [options] <command> [parameters]
WARNING
This manpage is not well-maintained; it is a summary of monotone's
capabilities, and probably contains inaccuracies. For the complete,
accurate manual, including tutorial, concepts, and full reference
documentation, please use info monotone or refer to
http://monotone.ca/docs/. The developers will gratefully accept
patches to arrange that this manpage, the --help output, and the main
manual are kept in sync mechanically.
On Debian systems, the monotone-doc package contains a local copy of
the HTML manual at /usr/share/doc/monotone/html/index.html, and a
printable PDF version.
DESCRIPTION
Monotone is a version control system, which allows you to keep old
versions of files, as well as special manifest files which describe the
location of files in a tree. Unlike other systems, versions in monotone
are identified by cryptographic hash, and operations are authenticated
by individual users' evaluating cryptographic signatures on meta-data,
rather than any central authority.
Monotone keeps a collection of versions in a single-file relational
database. It is essentially serverless, using network servers only as
untrusted communication facilities. A monotone database is a regular
file, which contains all the information needed to extract previous
versions of files, verify signatures, merge and modify versions, and
communicate with network servers.
COMMANDS
comment <id>
Write a comment cert for a revision.
approve <id>
Make a "branch" cert approving of a revision's membership in a
branch.
disapprove <id1>
Disapprove of a revision, committing the inverse changes as as a
descendant of the disapproved revision.
tag <id> <tagname>
Put a symbolic tag cert on a revision.
testresult <id> (0|1|true|false|yes|no|pass|fail)
Indicate a passing or failing test result on a revision.
diff [--revision=<id1> [--revision=<id2>] ] [<pathname>...]
Show diffs between workspace and database.
status [<pathname>...]
Show status of workspace.
log [id]
Show historical log of revisions, starting from workspace base
revision, or [id] if given.
cert <id> <certname> [certval]
Create a custom cert for a revision. Reads cert value from stdin
if no value given on command line.
genkey <keyid>
Generate an RSA key-pair and store it in the database.
Change passphrase of the private half of a key.
list certs <id>
List certs associated with revision.
list keys [partial-id]
List keys matching glob, or list all keys if no glob given.
list branches
List all branches.
list tags
List all tags.
list vars [<domain>]
List all vars (possibly limited by domain).
list unknown [<pathname...]
List files in workspace, but not in revision's manifest or work
list.
list ignored [<pathname...]
List files intentionally ignored due to the ignore_file hook.
list missing [<pathname...]
List files in revision's manifest, but not in workspace.
list changed [<pathname...]
List files in workspace that have changed compared to the base
revision.
fdata <id>
Write file data packet to stdout.
fdelta <oldid> <newid>
Write file delta packet to stdout.
mdata <id>
Write manifest data packet to stdout.
mdelta <oldid> <newid>
Write manifest delta packet to stdout.
certs <id>
Write revision cert packets to stdout.
rdata <id>
Write revision data packet to stdout.
privkey <id>
Write private key packet to stdout.
pubkey <id>
Write public key packet to stdout.
read [<file1> [<file2> [...]]]
Read packets from files or stdin.
cvs_import <cvsroot>/<module>
Import all versions in CVS module. Reconstructs revisions and
converts metadata to certificates. A private signing key must
already exist in the database.
rcs_import <rcsfile> ...
Import all file versions in RCS files. Does not reconstruct
revisions across the entire tree. You do not want this command,
it is for debugging; use cvs_import.
checkout [--revision=revision-id] [<directory>]
Check out revision from database.
co [--revision=revision-id] [<directory>]
Check out revision from database; an alias for checkout.
cat (file|manifest) <id>
Write file or manifest from database to stdout.
heads Show unmerged heads of branch, or report when branch is merged.
merge Merge unmerged heads of branch.
add <pathname> [...]
Add files to workspace. adding a file does not copy it into the
database, merely adds it to the work list. You must commit your
changes in order to copy added files to the database.
drop <pathname> [...]
Drop files from workspace. Files are not deleted from workspace,
merely noted as removals in the work list.
rename <src> <dst>
Rename files from <src> to <dst> in workspace.
commit [(--message=<log message>|--message-file=<file>)]
[<pathname>...]
Commit workspace to database. Each commit has a changelog
message associated with it. If --message is provided on the
command line, it is used; if --message-file is provided, the
content of the named file will be used as a commit message. If
the filename is '-' the commit message will be read from
standard input. Otherwise a log message editor will be invoked.
If the file _MTN/log exists and is non-empty, its content is
used to prefill the editor. You cannot specify both --message
and --message-file at the same time, and if _MTN/log exists and
is non-empty, you can cannot specify either of them at all.
update [revision-id]
Update workspace.
refresh_inodeprints
Turn on inodeprints mode, and force a cache refresh.
push [<host> [<glob>]]
Push contents of <glob> to database on <host>.
pull [<host> [<glob>]]
Push contents of <glob> from database on <host>.
sync <host> <glob>
Sync contents of <glob> with database on <host>.
serve [--pid-file=<path>] [--bind=[<host>][:<port>]] <glob>
[--exclude=<exclude-glob>]
Serve contents of <glob> at network address <host>, on the port
<port>. If <port> isn't given, 4691 is used. If a --pid-file
option is provided on the command line, monotone will store the
process id of the server in the specified file.
set <domain> <name> <value>
Set the db var <name> in domain <domain> to value <value>.
unset <domain> <name>
Delete any setting for db var <name> in domain <domain>.
automate (interface_version | heads | ancestors | attributes | parents
| descendents | children | graph | erase_ancestors | toposort |
ancestry_difference | leaves | inventory | stdio | certs | select)
Scripting interface.
db (init | info | version | dump | load | migrate | rebuild | execute |
check)
Manipulate database state.
OPTIONS
Command line options override environment variables and settings in lua
scripts (such as .monotonerc)
--help Print help message.
--debug
Turn on debugging log on standard error stream. This is very
verbose. Default is to be silent, unless an error occurs, in
which case failure log is dumped.
--quiet
Turn off normal progress messages.
--dump=<file>
Dump debugging log to file on failure.
--nostd
Do not evaluate "standard" lua hooks compiled into monotone.
--norc Do not load lua hooks from user's ~/.monotonerc file.
--rcfile=<file>
Load extra lua hooks from file (may be given multiple times).
--db=<file>
Use database in file.
--key=<keyid>
Use keyid for operations which produce RSA signatures. Default
is inferred from presence of unique private key in database. Can
also be customized on a per-branch basis with hook function
get_branch_key(branchname).
-k <keyid>
An alias for --key=<keyid>
--branch=<branchname>
Use branchname for operations on a branch. Default is inferred
in operations on existing branches (commit, update, etc).
-b <branchname>
An alias for --branch=<branchname>
--ticket=dot|count|none
Use the given method to print tickers. The count method prints
the count for each ticker on one line, incrementing the numbers
in place, while the dot method prints a continuous string of
characters (like some programs provide a progress line of dots).
none prints nothing. The default is count.
--revision=<id>
Used to specify one or more revision ids to various commands.
-r <id>
An alias for --revision=<id>
--message=<log message>
Use the given message as the changelog when committing a new
revision rather than invoking the log message editor. Currently
this option only applies to the commit command but it may also
apply to the comment command in the future. This option is
alternative to --message-file
-m <log message>
An alias for --message=<log message>
--message-file=<message file>
Use the content of the given file as the changelog when
committing a new revision rather than invoking the log message
editor. If the passed filename is '-' the changelog message will
be read from standard input. Currently this option only applies
to the commit command but it may also apply to the comment
command in the future. This option is alternative to --message.
--author=<author email>
Use the given author as the value of the "author" cert when
committing a new revision, rather than the default author.
Useful when committing a patch on behalf of someone else, or
when importing history from another version control system.
--date=<date and time>
Use the given given date and time as value of the "date" cert
when committing a new revision, rather than the current time.
Useful when importing history from another version control
system.
--root=<root dir>
Stop the search for a workspace (containing the _MTN directory)
at the specified root directory rather than at the physical root
of the filesystem.
--xargs=<file>
Inject the contents of the file in place among the command line
arguments. This may be useful in case the command line would
otherwise become too long for your system. This option can be
used more than once if needed.
-@ <file>
An alias for --xargs=<file>.
ENVIRONMENT
EDITOR Used to edit comments, log messages, etc.
VISUAL Used in preference to EDITOR, if set.
FILES
$HOME/.monotonerc
A lua script, used as a customization file.
SEE ALSO
http://monotone.ca/
BUGS
see http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=monotone
AUTHOR
graydon hoare <graydon@pobox.com>