conf-keep

A multi-host, multi-path etckeeper alternative.

conf-keep allows you to continuously keep track of changes to your configuration files wherever they are across multiple hosts. It uses cron to periodically synchronize a copy of the configuration you want to monitor and commits the changes to a single repository. Each host will have its own branch on the git repository.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/marceloslacerda/conf-keep
cd conf-keep
# That's all! You can run conf-keep with
python -m confkeep --help

conf-keep supports python ≥ 3.6.

Usage

You can use by following 4 simple steps.

1. python3 -m confkeep bootstrap

   This will configure the repository you want to use for tracking the changes.

2. python3 -m confkeep add-host

   This command will add the current host to the repository.

3. python3 -m confkeep watch

   This is how you specify which file/directory you want to monitor for changes

4. python3 -m confkeep install-cron

   This is a helper command that you can use to automatically install an entry to your crontab that will call the synchronization command.

5. (Optional) python3 -m confkeep sync

   This is the command that the cronfile calls. You normally don't run this manually.

Each command (except for sync) is interactive and will guide you through the configuration process. If you want to run the command non-interactively check confkeep/settings.py to know all the possible environment variables you can pass.

Running as a regular user

If you want to run conf-keep with a non-root user you should make sure to have followed some or all of the following steps:

1. Create a user account for it
2. Give it permissions for the directories that it will be using.
3. Configure its git credentials.
4. Set the CK_USER environment variable correctly.

Here's an example:

sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash conf-keep
sudo mkdir /var/backups/conf-keep-repo
sudo touch /usr/local/bin/conf-keep-sync /etc/cron.d/conf-keep /var/log/conf-keep-sync.log
sudo chown conf-keep /var/backups/conf-keep-repo /usr/local/bin/conf-keep-sync /etc/cron.d/conf-keep /var/log/conf-keep-sync.log
sudo su conf-keep
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
git config --global user.name "User Name"
# This last step assumes that you will add a public ssh key to your git host. Adjust it to your necessities.
ssh-keygen
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
# Follow the instructions this README.md Usage section.
# Remember to set the user of /etc/cron.d/conf-keep back to root after the install-cron command