Story: Generate a New IPFS Pack from Existing IPFS Content

[flyingzumwalt]

Motivation:
I have the hash of a directory that was previously added to IPFS, I want to build an IPFS pack containing the files & directories corresponding to the hash.

Note: ipget could be the tool (or starting point for a tool) to do this -- give it an ipfs hash and it will build packs from the existing ipfs content/blocks.

Acceptance Scenario

Given

• Andrew has added /a/bb/c1 to ipfs. The contents of the directory at 5GB.
• Janelle wants to use a copy of that directory

Then

• Janelle replicates the blocks into her ipfs repository using the root hash corresponding to the directory
• Janelle generates/exports a new ipfs pack using the root hash corresponding to the directory
• Janelle registers the ipfs-pack with her ipfs node
• Janelle un-pins the blocks in her ipfs node's repository

When Janelle is done replicating the data and running GC,

• Both Andrew and Janelle have the complete directory on their local machines.
• The new ipfs pack on Janelle's machine should matches the original directory on Andrew's machine.
• Janelle has only one copy of the data on her machine -- she does not have a redundant copy in a .ipfs repo

Needs Clarification:

• What API methods does janelle use to do this?

[flyingzumwalt]

@whyrusleeping the fastest & dirtiest way to do this would be to 'ipfs get' all the stuff you want, piping it to somewhere on the local file system, and then build a pack using 'ipfs pack'.

Is there a more efficient option? Is there a way to avoid re-building/recalculating the DAG for the pack Manifest since that info is already in ipfs?