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.
cd <path to cloned repo>
snapcraft cleanbuild
cd <path to cloned repo>
snap install etckeeper_*.snap --classic --dangerous
All the current configuration options that are in
etckeeper.conf are exposed as well as backup which is the file extension to use as well as enabling a backup. To change configuration use the sudo snap set etckeeper KEY=VALUE [KEY=VALUE ...]
| Key | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
vcs |
string | git |
Version control system to use, options are git, bzr, hg, or darcs. |
commit-options |
string | Flags to pass to the VCS command, selects the correct VCS based on configured VCS. The default for darcs is -a, and setting this will overwrite the current value. |
|
avoid-daily-autocommits |
int | Setting this to 1 will disable the daily commits |
|
avoid-special-file-warning |
int | Setting this to 1 will disable the special file warning (enabled by cronjob regardless) |
|
avoid-commit-before-install |
int | Setting this to 1 will disable the pre-install commit. |
|
highlevel-package-manger |
string | apt |
The high level package manager that is being used. |
lowlevel-package-manager |
string | dpkg |
The low level package manager that is being used. |
push-remote |
string | Set to the VCS remote(s) to push each commit to, using space delimitation for multiple remotes. |