etckeeper - keeping /etc under version control

[Suno Ano-2]

Hi folks,

I wrote an article about etckeeper... that nifty thing that allows to
keep /etc under version control and thus "rollback" in case something
bad happens during an upgrade or so.

http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/scm.html#etckeeper

[Oliver Schneider]

> I wrote an article about etckeeper... that nifty thing that allows to
> keep /etc under version control and thus "rollback" in case something
> bad happens during an upgrade or so.
>
> http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/scm.html#etckeeper

Thanks a lot. This is great. I had been looking for some tool like that for a while and had some failed attempts with SVN (failed with respect to the metadata).

Thanks for the helpful article and thanks for the pointer to the tool.

// Oliver


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[Suno Ano-2]

 Oliver> Thanks a lot. This is great. I had been looking for some tool
 Oliver> like that for a while and had some failed attempts with SVN
 Oliver> (failed with respect to the metadata).

yes, SVN, about that ... see
http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/scm.html#why_git


 Oliver> Thanks for the helpful article and thanks for the pointer to
 Oliver> the tool.

I am glad you like it

[Peter Jordan-2]

Suno Ano, Sun Jun 14 2009 15:04:28 GMT+0200 (CEST):

>  Oliver> Thanks a lot. This is great. I had been looking for some tool
>  Oliver> like that for a while and had some failed attempts with SVN
>  Oliver> (failed with respect to the metadata).
>
> yes, SVN, about that ... see
> http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/scm.html#why_git
>
>
>  Oliver> Thanks for the helpful article and thanks for the pointer to
>  Oliver> the tool.
>
> I am glad you like it
>
>

you can use svk instead of svn

pj


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[Suno Ano-2]

 Peter> You can use svk instead of svn

I do not see how this solves the metadata issue if you use a version
control system directly without the smartness etckeeper brings to the
table e.g. by using its .gitignore settings.

svk is an attempt to inject the notion of being a decentralized scm into
a centralized one (which svn happens to be) ... that has nothing to do
with putting /etc under version control

[Peter Jordan-2]

Suno Ano, Tue Jun 16 2009 12:37:28 GMT+0200 (CEST):

>  Peter> You can use svk instead of svn
>
> I do not see how this solves the metadata issue if you use a version
> control system directly without the smartness etckeeper brings to the
> table e.g. by using its .gitignore settings.
>
> svk is an attempt to inject the notion of being a decentralized scm into
> a centralized one (which svn happens to be) ... that has nothing to do
> with putting /etc under version control
>

metadata = data stored in .svn/ ?


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[Oliver Schneider]

> > I do not see how this solves the metadata issue if you use a version
> > control system directly without the smartness etckeeper brings to the
> > table e.g. by using its .gitignore settings.
> >
> > svk is an attempt to inject the notion of being a decentralized scm into
> > a centralized one (which svn happens to be) ... that has nothing to do
> > with putting /etc under version control
> >
>
> metadata = data stored in .svn/ ?

Yes. In this case all the metadata stored by SVN.

Certainly there is more metadata which is nowadays simply ignored by many VCS, partially due to the discrepancies between different platforms and there implementation of, say, file permissions, partially out of negligence or lack of a *proper* solution.

Also, as far as I understand SVK it's using only one Subversion library, not the whole thing. It's not just a distributed SVN in that sense ... also see: <http://svk.bestpractical.com/view/SVKAntiFUD>

// Oliver


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[Suno Ano-2]

 Peter> Metadata = data stored in .svn/ ?

yes, problem is, Subversion does not have one directory i.e. one .svn/
at the root of the project where is stores metadata but it scatters them
all over the place which is very annoying. Git only has one .git/ at the
project root at that is it

http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/scm.html#why_git --> metadata

[Peter Jordan-2]

Suno Ano, Wed Jun 17 2009 19:07:31 GMT+0200 (CEST):
>  Peter> Metadata = data stored in .svn/ ?
>
> yes, problem is, Subversion does not have one directory i.e. one .svn/
> at the root of the project where is stores metadata but it scatters them
> all over the place which is very annoying. Git only has one .git/ at the
> project root at that is it
>
> http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/scm.html#why_git --> metadata
>

svk does not store the metadata in the project path at all

PJ


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On Wednesday 17 June 2009 09:28:36 Oliver Schneider wrote:

> > > I do not see how this solves the metadata issue if you use a version
> > > control system directly without the smartness etckeeper brings to the
> > > table e.g. by using its .gitignore settings.
> > >
> > > svk is an attempt to inject the notion of being a decentralized scm
> > > into a centralized one (which svn happens to be) ... that has nothing
> > > to do with putting /etc under version control
> >
> > metadata = data stored in .svn/ ?
>
> Yes. In this case all the metadata stored by SVN.
>
> Certainly there is more metadata which is nowadays simply ignored by many
> VCS, partially due to the discrepancies between different platforms and
> there implementation of, say, file permissions, partially out of negligence
> or lack of a *proper* solution.
>

I considered that svn used the *proper* solution with it properties system.  

Using subversion properties allows you to store arbitrary metadata on a per
file/directory basis.  This allows each svn client to handle that metadata in
the most appropriate way, without having the application try to decide this
for you (It does make some assumptions for you, such as svn:executable, which
doesn't make sense on windows platforms, but is necessary for unixy systems.

I solved most of these problems a few years ago by making a program, etcsvn,  
to handle this stuff for me.  After using it for around a year or so, with
many machines, I found that it was less hassle to keep from placing the
complete /etc directory in subversion, and just track certain files (i.e.
those that were changed or new).
> Also, as far as I understand SVK it's using only one Subversion library,
> not the whole thing. It's not just a distributed SVN in that sense ... also
> see: <http://svk.bestpractical.com/view/SVKAntiFUD>
>
> // Oliver

--
Thanks:
Joseph Rawson

[Barclay, Daniel]

Suno Ano wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I wrote an article about etckeeper... that nifty thing that allows to
> keep /etc under version control and thus "rollback" in case something
> bad happens during an upgrade or so.
>
> http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/scm.html#etckeeper

Could you fix your web page formatting so it doesn't prevent one's
browser from wrapping text to fit the viewport?

Daniel
--
(Plain text sometimes corrupted to HTML "courtesy" of Microsoft Exchange.) [F]

[Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.-3]

In <4A53B5C5.7000400@...>, Barclay, Daniel wrote:

>Suno Ano wrote:
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I wrote an article about etckeeper... that nifty thing that allows to
>> keep /etc under version control and thus "rollback" in case something
>> bad happens during an upgrade or so.
>>
>> http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/scm.html#etckeeper
>
>Could you fix your web page formatting so it doesn't prevent one's
>browser from wrapping text to fit the viewport?

Could you fix your CSS so the page is readable if the user's default is
light text on a dark background?  One CSS "best practice" is to always
specify a background color when specify a foreground color.
--
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.           ,= ,-_-. =.
bss@...             ((_/)o o(\_))
ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-'
http://iguanasuicide.net/            \_/

[Chris Jones-44]

On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 04:53:25PM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:

> Suno Ano wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I wrote an article about etckeeper... that nifty thing that allows to
> > keep /etc under version control and thus "rollback" in case something
> > bad happens during an upgrade or so.
> >
> > http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/scm.html#etckeeper
>
> Could you fix your web page formatting so it doesn't prevent one's
> browser from wrapping text to fit the viewport?

Maybe use a mature browser such as ELinks - displays fine here.

Actually I took a peek with Seamonkey as well and apart from white
rabbits that I could live without - and other prettifying that I
definitely will live without :-) everything renders OK.

To the OP: a rather amazing web site. Maybe the 57-page long scm article
could be structured in chapters on separate pages - that's just me, of
course.

CJ


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[John Hasler]

CJ writes:
> Maybe use a mature browser such as ELinks - displays fine here.

The problem is that some of us have less than perfect vision and
consequently use a minimum type size larger than that assumed by the site
designer.
--
John Hasler


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[Chris Jones-44]

On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 08:14:57PM EDT, John Hasler wrote:
> CJ writes:
> > Maybe use a mature browser such as ELinks - displays fine here.
>
> The problem is that some of us have less than perfect vision

"And poor old Homer, blind, blind as a bat, (..)
 Ear, ear for the sea-surge, murmer of old men's voices.. "

etc.

Good catch, though, I indeed have excellent vision and being a pauper
condemned to the smaller screen sizes, I  do use tiny fonts.

:-)

CJ


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[Suno Ano-2]

Hi folks,

 Chris> Actually I took a peek with Seamonkey as well and apart from
 Chris> white rabbits that I could live without - and other prettifying
 Chris> that I definitely will live without :-) everything renders OK.

http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/faq.html#your_site_css_sucks_mate!_i_have_to_scroll!

 Chris> To the OP: a rather amazing web site. Maybe the 57-page long scm
 Chris> article could be structured in chapters on separate pages -
 Chris> that's just me, of course.

well, cutting a page into many smaller pages is one of two possible
things one could do ... I opted for "all on one page" which is the
second possible thing to do. I am not going to change it now ... even if
I did, there would then be folks asking be to put all on one page :)

[Scott Gifford]

Peter Jordan <usernetwork@...> writes:

> Suno Ano, Wed Jun 17 2009 19:07:31 GMT+0200 (CEST):
>>  Peter> Metadata = data stored in .svn/ ?
>> yes, problem is, Subversion does not have one directory i.e. one
>> .svn/
>> at the root of the project where is stores metadata but it scatters them
>> all over the place which is very annoying. Git only has one .git/ at the
>> project root at that is it
>> http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/scm.html#why_git --> metadata
>>
>
> svk does not store the metadata in the project path at all

Being able to use something like etckeeper with svn (maybe via svk)
would be very useful to me, has anybody tried this?

----Scott.


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[Andrei Popescu-3]

On Wed,08.Jul.09, 07:38:10, Suno Ano wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
>  Chris> Actually I took a peek with Seamonkey as well and apart from
>  Chris> white rabbits that I could live without - and other prettifying
>  Chris> that I definitely will live without :-) everything renders OK.
>
> http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/faq.html#your_site_css_sucks_mate!_i_have_to_scroll!
 
Even at 1680x1050 there is a horizontal scrollbar...

>  Chris> To the OP: a rather amazing web site. Maybe the 57-page long scm
>  Chris> article could be structured in chapters on separate pages -
>  Chris> that's just me, of course.
>
> well, cutting a page into many smaller pages is one of two possible
> things one could do ... I opted for "all on one page" which is the
> second possible thing to do. I am not going to change it now ... even if
> I did, there would then be folks asking be to put all on one page :)

It does simplify searches within a page, but it might take too long to
load over a slow connection.

Regards,
Andrei
P.S. Please don't break the quoting in your posts, it makes your mails
more difficult to read in a mailer who can distinguish between different
levels of quoting
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)

[Suno Ano-2]

Andrei> It does simplify searches within a page, but it might take too
Andrei> long to load over a slow connection.

Actually I think all content on one page simplifies searching a lot
more; we can use Ctrl+f with firefox/iceweasel for example.

[Suno Ano-2]

 Scott> Being able to use something like etckeeper with svn (maybe via
 Scott> svk) would be very useful to me, has anybody tried this?

I never tried myself i.e. I only use git as backend. Looks like only those

,----[ grep -A3 VCS /etc/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf ]
| # The VCS to use.
| # VCS="hg"
| VCS="git"
| # VCS="bzr"
| # VCS="darcs"
|
| # Options passed to git commit when run by etckeeper.
| #GIT_COMMIT_OPTIONS=""
`----

VCS systems are supported ... no svn as you can see. Judging from above,
those are all being decentralized, I suppose svn (even with svk on top)
is not supported.