Re: recommendations for version controlling /etc on a new f12 box?

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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.
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