Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:14:53 +1030 From: Rob <freebsd@deathbeforedecaf.net> To: David Robillard <david.robillard@gmail.com>, Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Using source control to manage system configs Message-ID: <934FF44E-39F5-410B-B235-5F5709B4340A@deathbeforedecaf.net> In-Reply-To: <226ae0c60702261046m671647bbwc9aef6b1f6475522@mail.gmail.com> References: <226ae0c60702261046m671647bbwc9aef6b1f6475522@mail.gmail.com>
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On 27/02/2007, at 5:16 AM, David Robillard wrote: > If you simply want to track changes and be able to roll back your > configuration files, then go with a more simple approach like using > RCS locally. RCS is part of the base FreeBSD system. David & Chuck, I'm already using RCS, and I've built a somewhat clunky mechanism around it. One machine holds the master copies of - site-wide files (/etc/ntp.conf, /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/syslog.conf) - host-specific files (/etc/hosts, /etc/passwd, /etc/rc.conf) for each server At install time, both sets of files are tarred up and copied to the new server. If there's a conflict, the host-specific files win. Problem: It's a good system for installs, but then I update the files on the working server. I always mean to merge the changes back to the master copy, but it never quite happens. Solution: CVS with a remote repository looks good - updates on the server, and a central record of all changes. Reinstalling a server should be as easy as 'cvs co $HOST'. Problem: I don't want 6 identical copies of /etc/ntp.conf under version control, so the site-wide files and host-specific files should be in separate modules. But they have the same working directory, and this is where I run into problems with CVS - it's impossible to check them both out to the same server. Is there some way to do this with Subversion? Or can a file be shared by different modules? Or am I going about this all wrong? > Now if you want to keep your changes on another machine, then it's > just a simple question of running a backup of your machines. (you do > backup right? ;) Absolutely - I dump /home from each server to an old iPod (it's a small network). But backups are for preserving entire filesystems. I want my system configs to be version controlled, as well as saved. > Have fun, Of course - that's why I do this :-) Rob.
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