So, some times ago I had this question https://feddit.it/post/22496010 about how to manage my system configuration, storing it on a repository or something.
Many people recommended using ansible to manage the system as a whole, but my system was already up and running, what I wanted instead was something to move around files while fixing up their permissions, so I build a python script for that.
The script grew more refined as time went on, and so now I’m publishing it so anyone can use it.
p.s.: this script is purely python and has no external dependencies!
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Hey :) Thanks for sharing your project ! I’m still not 100% sure I need this because right now I just make backups of my dot files and config files and i’m relatively new with git and my self-hosted forgejo instance.
However, after experimenting the power of version control, i’m kinda interessted to host my dot/config files into my hosted forgejo instance ! But permissions and ownership are not natively supported and needs manual intervention !
Is that the issues your project is solving?
DID YOU skip the previous warning? Make sure you didn’t skip it, as this might cause you to lose access to your own files!
😂🫡 Well written and funny documentation ! Thank you !
Is that the issues your project is solving?
That’s exactly it, and also the fact that git doesn’t follow symlinks. Just a word of warning, If you are still inexperienced I suggest you run my tool manually instead of automating it with git hooks, as it is inherently less secure. In the post I linked in the description you can see some of the precautions I took to make it more secure. Still, running it manually is fine.
Feel free to give some feedback if you start using the tool 🙂
I’m also just using GNU stow into a git repo. It needs no configuration file and just works on any system. Rolling out a new system takes 2 commands. I really don’t see the need for a specialized tool for this use case.
Say you want to store
/etc/ufw/sysctl.confwhich is owned byroot:admand has permission 644 in your repo, but also/etc/ntfy/server.ymlwhich is owned byntfy:ntfywith permissions 664. How do you keep track of this with gnu stow?Ah now I understand the purpose. I only use it for my (personal) dotfiles, which as a term is ambiguous at best, but in my case I mean config files. That was how I essentially misread your title. Obviously all those files are owned by my user, and most live in ~/.config or similar locations beneath my home directory. Things like application preferences, basically.
Obviously your tool also works for this, but I now understand it’s more meant for system wide config files.
Yeah, it’s cool, people are mostly looking for something like your usecase. I got suggested stow or stow-like tools a lot when exploring this. And when they understood what I wanted, they just suggested ansible… Which would work when starting from scratch, but wasn’t right for me. I made copicat mostly because I am actually using it, and then decided to make it public because really I didn’t find anything like it.
I would like to add that I did look at the GitHub before commenting. And I still didn’t get it. Matthew with just explain what it does, but also why is different from the common tools/suggestions that seem similar. Maybe it’s more about highlighting the differences (or the additional capabilities).
Neat! I’ve been meaning to build something like this with OSTree as the storage backend, but it’s mostly vaporware for now.
