On 02/18/2010 06:55 AM, Robert P. J. Day wrote: > > i'm about to install f12 fresh on a new laptop and i thought it > would be fun to version control all of /etc since that's where all the > fun happens. anyone doing that? recommendations? a quick google > found this: > > http://aymanh.com/version-control-linux-configuration-files-etc-etckeeper > > i'm just curious if there's a strategy that's clearly superior to the > rest, or if this sort of thing is even worth it. Until recently I used CVS for this and found it invaluable as a simple record of what I changed, when and why (useful for troubleshooting when some problem crops up days or weeks after you made a configuration change and have forgotten the details) and for migrating changes to a new os install. Besides the command line tools, there are gui and web interfaces available for CVS the make it easy to browse changes for all machines over all time, from anywhere. I still have the CVS repo from the 2002 Redhat 8.0 install when I first started doing this. Recently I started using Mercurial for software development and so started using it for controlling system config files as well and find setting up and using it easier (for the most part) than CVS. I am lukewarm on Mercurial and DVCSs in general though -- they seem like they are still a little immature though they do address a lot of CVS "mature" misfeatures. Have never used SVN since one of the DVCS benefits is simple or no central server setup, but I think it too would be good. The only mildly tricky part in using VCS was to get into the habit of checking in the original, unmodified, config file *before* modifying it. (I only add files that actually get modified rather than everything to save space and keep things simpler.) All-in-all, I found putting system config files under a VCS to be a real win and have made it my SOP on linux boxes. Of course for recovery purposes you still need to make sure you have some backup strategy for the VCS repos. BTW, I also find it useful to control other directories in addition to /etc; I have DNS and postgresql config files in /var for example. -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
