Re: Sharing dotfiles between diverse accounts

[Oki DZ <okidz@pindad.com>]

On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, David Z Maze wrote:
> In my ideal world, I'd like some sort of update system where I can
> change a dotfile on one machine and everything magically changes
> elsewhere.  

You can try Coda filesystem; http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu.
But still, you'd need a server machine for the main storage; the changes
you make on the client machine, would be stored on the server. By doing
so, anytime you use another client machine (and connect to the server),
you'd get the update.

> This seems like a common enough problem that anybody sufficiently
> geeky (say, who has a Debian machine at home and some Unixy machine at
> work/school) would have run into it.  Are there any pre-canned, or at
> least not-too-groady home-baked solutions out there?

I think Coda is for you; it even allows you to update your data on the
client while you are disconnected (say, you are using a laptop). And
later, when you are connected, the storage in the server will be updated.
This would also mean that you'd need some kind of cache in your laptop;
don't worry, Coda has set it up for you. All you need to do is to make
sure that you have space in your hd for that cache; and the size would be
the largest update you'd ever make on the laptop.

Pretty long ago, I tested Coda on my systems; I liked seeing the updates
going while I was un/plugging (for many times) the Ethernet cord... kinda
cool.
 
> writing it, effectively desymlinkifying things.  I could in principle
> set up AFS everywhere that matters, but in practice I've run into

Coda's origin is AFS2; so, you'd feel at home.

> issues unloading the openafs kernel modules before [issueful if I need
> to kick my laptop's networking] and 

Coda needs a module for the Linux kernel, but the client works just like
NFS client (while connected); once you have set it up, you can update the
local directories as usual, and when you get connected, the server will be
updated.

> I have less control over my work 
> machine than I'd like.  And, of course, it goes without saying that 
> people who aren't me shouldn't be able to modify the dotfiles.) 

Hmm... you'd need to setup the server machine for the Coda server; well,
you can ask (beg) the sysadmin.

Oki