MTN(1)

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/. (On Debian systems, a local copy of the HTML manual is available in the monotone-doc package as /usr/share/doc/monotone-doc/html/index.html, along with a printable PDF copy.) The developers will gratefully accept patches to arrange that this manpage, the --help output, and the main manual are kept in sync mechanically.

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>