Etckeeper - Installation in the GUI and How to version control "etc" directory in Linux

The Above, are a few Screen Shots of the way I installed "etckeeper" in the GUI...

So, I found this great Quick and Simple Tutorial, on How to version control /etc directory in Linux. With the "etckeeper" App. It tells you how to Install and Setup etckeeper in the Command Line. But, the first thing I did, was do a search for etckeeper, in my GUI App Manager, in my Fedora 14 System. And it came right up. After reading the How To Article. I knew to look for, "etckeeper-bzr". And both etckeeper and etckeeper-bzr came up in my Search Results. So, installed them both. Then I went back to the Tutorial (below) and ran the setup and status checking commands. Looks like mine is setup and monitoring my "etc" directory now. So, that's it for me. Until I feel the need to go back to a Previous Configuration or have some kind of Conflicting Application Problem, with a new App Install. Check out the How To and the etckeeper Site info below... Thanks to Dan Nanni for Sharing his knowledge!:)

Don

Etckeeper - Installation in the GUI and How to version control "etc" directory in Linux

How to version control /etc directory in Linux - Linux FAQ

etckeeper

joey/ code/ etckeeper

etckeeper is a collection of tools to let /etc be stored in a git, mercurial, darcs, or bzr repository. It hooks into apt (and other package managers including yum and pacman-g2) to automatically commit changes made to /etc during package upgrades. It tracks file metadata that revison control systems do not normally support, but that is important for /etc, such as the permissions of /etc/shadow. It's quite modular and configurable, while also being simple to use if you understand the basics of working with revision control.

etckeeper is available in git at git://git.kitenet.net/etckeeper, or in gitweb. It's packaged in Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.

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http://joeyh.name/code/etckeeper/

Linux FAQ

How to version control /etc directory in Linux

Authored by Dan Nanni on August 9, 2013 Leave a Comment

In Linux, /etc directory contains important system-related or application-specific configuration files. Especially in a server environment, it is wise to back up various server configurations in /etc directory regularly, to save trouble from any accidental changes in the directory, or to help with re-installation of necessary packages. Better yet, it is a good idea to “version control” everything in /etc directory, so that you can track configuration changes, or recover from a previous configuration state if need be.

In Linux, etckeeper is a collection of tools for versioning content, specifically in /etc directory. etckeeper uses existing revision control systems (e.g., git, bzr, mercurial, or darcs) to store version history in a corresponding backend repository. The advantage of etckeeper is that it integrates with package managers (e.g., apt, yum) to automatically commit any changes made to /etc directory during package installation, upgrade or removal.

In this tutorial, I will describe how to version control /etc directory in Linux with etckeeper. Here, I will configure etckeeper to use bzr as a backend version control repository.

Install Etckeeper on Linux

To install etckeeper and bzr on Ubuntu, Debian or Mint:

$ sudo apt-get install etckeeper bzr

To install etckeeper and bzr on CentOS or RHEL, first set up EPEL repository, and then run:

$ sudo yum install etckeeper etckeeper-bzr

To install etckeeper and bzr on Fedora, simply run:

$ sudo yum install etckeeper etckeeper-bzr

Set up and Initialize Etckeeper

The first thing to do after installing etckeeper is to edit its configuration file. You can leave other options as default.

$ sudo vi /etc/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf

# The VCS to use.  VCS="bzr"    # Avoid etckeeper committing existing changes to /etc automatically once per day.  AVOID_DAILY_AUTOCOMMITS=1  

Now go ahead and initialize etckeeper as follows.

$ sudo etckeeper init

At this point, everything in /etc directory has been added to the backend bzr repository. However, note that the added content has not been committed yet. You need to either commit the action manually, or install/upgrade any package with a standard package manager such as apt or yum, which will trigger the first commit automatically. Here, I will do the first commit manually as follows.

$ sudo etckeeper commit “initial commit”

Etckeeper Examples

To check the status of /etc directory, run the following command. This will show any (uncommitted) change made to /etc directory since the latest version.

$ sudo etckeeper vcs status

To show differences between the latest version and the current state of /etc:

$ sudo etckeeper vcs diff /etc

To commit the current (changed) state of /etc directory:

$ sudo etckeeper commit “any comment”

To check the commit history of the entire /etc dirctory or specific files/subdirectories:

$ sudo etckeeper vcs log
$ sudo etckeeper vcs log /etc/sysconfig/*

To check the difference between two specific revisions (revision number 1 and 3):

$ sudo etckeeper vcs diff -r1..3

To view the change made by a specific revision (e.g., revision number 3):

$ sudo etckeeper vcs diff -c3

To revert the content of /etc directory to a specific revision (e.g., revision number 2):

$ sudo etckeeper vcs revert --revision 2 /etc

Automatic Commits by Etckeeper

As mentioned eariler, etckeeper automatically commits changes made to /etc as part of package installation or upgrade. In this example, I try installing Apache HTTP Server as a test.

$ sudo yum install httpd

To view the commit history auto-generated by package installation:

$ sudo etckeeper vcs log

------------------------------------------------------------  revno: 5  committer: dan   branch nick: fedora /etc repository  timestamp: Mon 2013-08-05 06:39:33 -0400  message:    committing changes in /etc after yum run        Package changes:    +0:apr-1.4.6-3.fc18.x86_64    +0:apr-util-1.4.1-6.fc18.x86_64    +0:httpd-2.4.4-3.fc18.x86_64    +0:httpd-tools-2.4.4-3.fc18.x86_64  ------------------------------------------------------------  

To view the changes made in /etc directory by package installation:

$ sudo etckeeper vcs diff -c5

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Filed under: Development, Filesystem, System Tagged with: bzr, version

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