[nycbug-talk] version control for config files

[Pete Wright]

On 26-Feb-09, at 3:27 PM, Charles Sprickman wrote:

> Howdy,
>
> I think the subject pretty much sums it up - I'm sick of not tracking
> changes in /etc and /usr/local/etc.  I want something that deal with  
> file
> permissions and is relatively transparent.
>
> I've been googling around, but finding not much other than weird
> contortions based on CVS that make such huge disclaimers as "this of
> course does not work with symlinks" or "this of course does not  
> maintain
> file ownership/permissions".
>
> cfengine and the like do more than I want...
>
> Any interesting ideas out there?
>
> The most I have to work with is perhaps a dozen servers, maybe  
> almost that
> many jails.

big fan of using RCS for local cfg changes.  stores everything local  
by default, but it is easy to recover from corruption using vi/sed/awk  
if necessary.  i've usually just used it to track who made changes to  
what, so i know who to strangle when /etc/hosts gets messed up :)

having said that, for managing many systems making the leap to a  
cfgmgt engine like cfengine (or puppet if you feel like taking a  
risk*) maybe worth it too.

just my two bits.

-pete



*i know people have many problems with cfengine, and yes puppet's  
config syntax is nice - but after seeing one too many ruby processes  
eating up ~150/200MB of resident memory just kinda makes me cringe.