Strategy for managing files in /etc, suggestions?

[Chris Green]

On Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 11:20:57AM +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote:
> On 16Dec2020 22:32, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> >I use mercurial for managing all the little bash and python utilities
> >that I write for my various Linux systems and it's very handy.
> >
> >I'm thinking that it would be an excellent idea to keep track of
> >changes I do to system configuration files in /etc, I try to keep
> >these to a minimum but some are inevitable.
> >
> >What's the best way of handling this, changes to very few files in a
> >directory with (probably) thousands of files?  Is it best simply to
> >copy them out to a development area, do changes there and copy them
> >back to /etc?  I'm not entirely happy with this method but I can't
> >really see a better way.
> 
> You could just change them in place, and keep the copied in a dev area.  
> So:
> 
>     cd devdir
>     hg init .
>     mkdir etc
>     cp -a /etc/hosts etc/
>     hg add etc/hosts
>     hg commit -m 'etc/hosts: original /etc/hosts' etc/hosts
>     ... as root, modify /etc/hosts until happy ...
>     cp -a /etc/hosts etc/
>     hg commit -m 'etc/hosts: changed these things..."
> 
> So don't use the dev area as the master, ise the OS as the master. Just 
> use the dev area to keep records of the orignal and subsequent changes.
> 
Yes, that's a reasonable way of doing it, thanks.


> Also, note that in many modern OS distros there are avenues to provide 
> "additional" config files without treading on the originals. Usually 
> some /etc/something.d directory where you can add your own files.  
> Depends on the distro and the thing you're adjusting of course.
> 
Yes, so upgrades don't overwrite them, it's still useful to keep tabs
on them though.


> >Does anyone else do anything like either of the above?  ... or is my
> >OCD getting the better of me! :-)
> 
> No, it is a sound approach. Particularly if you want to revert things.  
> Or you do an OS update and need to compare the new venodr config against 
> your costom one after the update. Etc.
> 
Exactly, thank you for confirming I'm not totally mad. :-)

-- 
Chris Green