A git-like content-addressed store for filesystem trees.
zub stores directory trees as content-addressed objects (blobs, trees, commits) with full metadata preservation: ownership, permissions, xattrs, sparse files, and hardlinks.
Similar to ostree's bare repo mode, blobs are stored uncompressed with metadata applied directly to the files, enabling hardlink-based checkout for zero-copy extraction.
- simpler than ostree
- supports user namespace remapping (rootless containers)
- union merging for layer composition
- efficient deduplication via content-addressing
cargo install zub-store# static binary via container (no dependencies needed)
make build
# or locally
cargo build --release# init a repo
zub init /path/to/repo
# repo is auto-detected from ZUB_REPO env or .zub symlink/dir
ln -s /path/to/repo .zub
# or
zub init .zub
# commit a directory tree
zub commit /some/dir my-ref -m "initial"
# checkout (hardlinks by default)
zub checkout my-ref /target/dir
# view history
zub log my-ref
# diff two refs
zub diff ref-a ref-b
# merge multiple refs (last-wins on conflict)
zub union ref-a ref-b ref-c merged-ref --on-conflict last
# sync between repos (local or SSH)
zub push /other/repo my-ref
zub pull user@host:/remote/repo some-ref # auto-deploys zub if needed| command | description |
|---|---|
init |
create a new repository |
commit |
snapshot a directory into a ref |
checkout |
extract a ref to a directory |
log |
show commit history |
diff |
compare two refs |
ls-tree |
list tree contents |
union |
merge multiple refs |
push / pull |
sync refs between repositories (local or SSH) |
gc |
garbage collect unreachable objects |
fsck |
verify repository integrity |
remap |
translate blob ownership across namespaces |
stats / du |
repository statistics and disk usage |
Run zub --help for full command list.
repo/
├── config.toml
├── objects/
│ ├── blobs/ # file content (uncompressed, with metadata)
│ ├── trees/ # directory structure (cbor + zstd)
│ └── commits/ # commit metadata (cbor + zstd)
└── refs/
├── heads/
└── tags/
MIT