Re: config-file repository or what !?!

[Tobias Brox]

[raptor - Tue at 11:30:36AM +0200]
> cvs -d :pserver:address@hidden:/cvsroot add httpd.conf
> cvs -d :pserver:address@hidden:/cvsroot commit httpd.conf
> 
> And what happen on the CVS side :
> 
> Cvs creates
> /cvsroot/user/user-ip/httpd.conf,v

So, for each combination of ip and user, the file is unique, and should be
in a different directory/module in the $CVSROOT.

It's probably the best option if and only if the files with common filename
(i.e. all instances of httpd.conf) contains no common stuff, if you're
really sure you want to keep all files in the same repository, and if you
want version control on each file, and changes in one file never should be
merged into all the other files.

Generally, I don't think that's the case for configuration files.

> any consequent commit updates this file accordinaly.. ( or may be some
> extention with new param to "add" and/or "commit" so it can generate unique
> name based on user system variables,

You might use CVS as it is today to achieve the solution above, just fix a
tiny script to set the repository path according to some system variables.

> so that it can be used at the CVS
> server side as directory name where to store this file ... then probbaly a
> command will be needed to mimic other machine, say u reinstalled the box or
> want to use the same configuration on other place, it get complicated here
> :")) )

Just shortcut the above mentionated script, and you can check out the
configuration for one box at another box.

> Is it possible something like this at all !? or i'm thinking about the wrong
> product ?

Probably you should look into some configuration management tool - check out
cfengine.

> I really will appricate something like that... 'cause as it seems I will
> have a couple of systems spread around the globe which will be good to have
> all their configurations on a single place, under CVS control..

I haven't checked out cfengine myself, but as far as I've understood, the
idea is that you can have one /script/ for each configuration file.  The
script can generate and modify configuration files at any number of hosts,
and you can easily put up new hosts and apply the standard configuration.

I'm not sure how truely site-local configurations are handled in cfengine.

It probably makes sense to put the cfengine-scripts into one central CVS
repository.

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