Versioned /etc ?

[Jeronimo Pellegrini <pellegrini@mpcnet.com.br>]

Hi.

So, I was trying to figure out a way to get automatic versioning
for all files in /etc, and I wonder if someone tried that already.

I would like to:

1. Not have to add files to a list when I add them to etc (like,
   I don't want to have to "csv add" any files);

2. Not have to manually check in (although I could get vim to
   automatically do that, I guess);

3. Be robust and not too complex. Simplicity is something I am willing
   to give up if nothing else works (but robustness is a must).

What I could think of is:

- Use version control. From simple rcs to full mercurial/monotone,
  this would be interesting, but this fails (1) and (2).
  Maybe a cronjob could automatically add unknown files, but I don't
  feel comfortable with that.
  (But I see lots of advantages in putting /etc in a distributed VCS,
  like automatic incremental backups, easy propagation to other
  similar hosts, etc);

- Use a versioning filesystem, like CopyFS[0]. This is nice, but
  the only filesystems I could find with versioning are FUSE-based,
  and I'm not sure if it would be possible to get /etc mounted on
  FUSE. Maybe with initrd (anyone ever mounted root or /etc on FUSE?),
  but it fails (3).

Does anyone have other ideas?

Thanks,
J.

[0] http://n0x.org/copyfs