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Posted to users@subversion.apache.org by Richard In Public <ed...@blueyonder.co.uk> on 2004/03/03 18:13:23 UTC
SVN my linux box - sanity check
Hi All
The (inherently complex) configuration of a linux installation begs to
be versioned. Here is what I'm planning to do:
[After backing up all files to be versioned]
1. Create an empty "installation" repository
2. Checkout a working copy into / (i.e. / now contains .svn)
3. Add /etc and, for example, /opt/tomcat/conf to repository (add, commit)
4... Commit / after updating configuratons enabling rollbacks, diff, etc.
The two issues that come to mind are:
1. Security - obviously the repository needs to be closely guarded
2. Permissions - this is only useful if svn 'remembers' the permissions
of each file
A quick test suggests that SVN does indeed restore permissions as
checked in. So no problems?
Well, I thought I'd see if anyone has tried this or forsees any problems
with this scheme...
best regards,
Richard Hoberman
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Re: SVN my linux box - sanity check
Posted by Calvin Spealman <ca...@ironfroggy.com>.
On Wednesday 03 March 2004 1:13 pm, Richard In Public
<ed...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi All
>
> The (inherently complex) configuration of a linux installation begs to
> be versioned. Here is what I'm planning to do:
>
> [After backing up all files to be versioned]
>
> 1. Create an empty "installation" repository
> 2. Checkout a working copy into / (i.e. / now contains .svn)
> 3. Add /etc and, for example, /opt/tomcat/conf to repository (add, commit)
> 4... Commit / after updating configuratons enabling rollbacks, diff, etc.
>
> The two issues that come to mind are:
> 1. Security - obviously the repository needs to be closely guarded
> 2. Permissions - this is only useful if svn 'remembers' the permissions
> of each file
>
> A quick test suggests that SVN does indeed restore permissions as
> checked in. So no problems?
>
> Well, I thought I'd see if anyone has tried this or forsees any problems
> with this scheme...
>
> best regards,
>
> Richard Hoberman
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@subversion.tigris.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@subversion.tigris.org
I think thats a great idea, assuming it goes well, of course. If it doesn't
then any work needed to make it work properly would be worth the effort. I
can see all kinds of benefits, aside from the obviousness of rolling a system
back to a working copy.
I would even consider adding more directories to the repository, such as /home
and maybe /boot . You'll probably want to omit some things from the
repository, like /tmp and such.
I administer my family computer and i'm always looking for ways to make things
nicer for them, and I think it would be cool to have a nice interface to
this. A little K app to let them commit their $HOME or something.
Anyway, I'm ranting a bit, but I like to get ideas out for others to comment
on how stupid or genius I am :-D
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Re: SVN my linux box - sanity check
Posted by Robert Guthrie <rg...@pobox.com>.
Richard In Public wrote:
> Hi All
> The two issues that come to mind are:
> 2. Permissions - this is only useful if svn 'remembers' the permissions
> of each file
>
> A quick test suggests that SVN does indeed restore permissions as
> checked in. So no problems?
Being a newbie, I'm not sure that this isn't just coincedence. Plus, do
user & group memberships remain the same, even though you're checking
out files as just one user (root, presumbably)? You might want to do a
find [dirs & options] -ls > backuplist.txt and keep that under
subversion as well. If you ever had to restore from the svn repository,
you'd have something from which to re-assign ownership if it didn't do
what you expected.
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Re: SVN my linux box - sanity check
Posted by Brian Mathis <bm...@directedge.com>.
You might be interested a tool called "cfengine". Here's it's homepage:
http://www.cfengine.org/
and a nice intro article at Linux Journal (though you don't need a
network config for just 1 machine):
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6848
I think when most people think about versioning config files, they are
really looking for something like cfengine - though svn will probably
work as well.
As far as permissions go in svn, it will only restore them to whatever
the current user's umask is set to. Files like /etc/shadow that are
private will probably not be restored properly.
Richard In Public wrote:
> Hi All
>
> The (inherently complex) configuration of a linux installation begs to
> be versioned. Here is what I'm planning to do:
>
> [After backing up all files to be versioned]
>
> 1. Create an empty "installation" repository
> 2. Checkout a working copy into / (i.e. / now contains .svn)
> 3. Add /etc and, for example, /opt/tomcat/conf to repository (add,
> commit)
> 4... Commit / after updating configuratons enabling rollbacks, diff,
> etc.
>
> The two issues that come to mind are:
> 1. Security - obviously the repository needs to be closely guarded
> 2. Permissions - this is only useful if svn 'remembers' the
> permissions of each file
>
> A quick test suggests that SVN does indeed restore permissions as
> checked in. So no problems?
>
> Well, I thought I'd see if anyone has tried this or forsees any
> problems with this scheme...
>
> best regards,
>
> Richard Hoberman
>
>
--
Brian Mathis
http://directedge.com/b/
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