etckeeper (was Re: Any volunteer to maintain svk in Debian?)

[vagrant@freegeek.org]

On Sat, Jan 02, 2010 at 06:31:56PM +0100, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> [Holger Levsen]
> > /me is also too busy for more packages, but I'd suggest to use the
> > etckeeper package instead (if we dont find a etcinsvk maintainer),
> > which is nicely maintained.
>
> Is etckeeper non-interactive and update automatically using a cron job
> every hour, like etcinsvk?

not by default, but it's trivial:

  #!/bin/sh

  log=/var/log/etckeeper.hourly.log

  # check for changes on a hourly basis
  if [ -x /usr/bin/etckeeper ] && etckeeper unclean ; then
      etckeeper commit "hourly changes: $(date)" >> $log
  fi

i've been using etckeeper for 4-6 months, and i would strongly recommend
switching to it. it's really fast and has a simple plugin infrastructure.

the only annoyance i would think is during package installation/removal, it
generates some noise from the git commits. you could probably reduce or
eliminate the noise or at worst, disable the post/pre package installation
hooks and let the hourly cron job handle that stuff.

live well,
  vagrant