[Beowulf] Thoughts on git?

[Chris Samuel]

On Wednesday, 20 December 2017 3:56:19 AM AEDT Adam DeConinck wrote:

> I am also a fan of putting everything in source control. This is useful for
> small scripts, but even more so (IMO) for configuration files. Being able
> to track changes closely is a lifesaver when something about a system stops
> working, and you have no idea what has changed. Source control has saved me
> from the “this change is harmless!” problem many times.

+1 for this - and also the related "etckeeper" which is packaged in Debian/
Ubuntu and RHEL/CentOS.   It hooks in to apt/yum and basically automates 
version control for your /etc directory.

It defaults to using git (though others are possible, Ubuntu used to default 
to bzr for some bizare reason - sorry) and by default will do daily commits of 
/etc as well as before and after package manager changes (so you can see what 
files in /etc were changed by a particular package install/upgrade/removal).

You can also drive it yourself, if you modify something in /etc then you can 
just (as root, obviously) do:

/etc # etckeeper commit "Changed foo to bar in all config files"

Which then lets you revert it should you decide that perhaps some foo's were 
actually needed.  Of course you can still use the underlying VCS commands too, 
it's just providing a handy wrapper.

All the best,
Chris
-- 
 Chris Samuel  :  http://www.csamuel.org/  :  Melbourne, VIC