Re: Symbolic Links - Background !??

[Mental]

On Wed, Dec 20, 2000 at 02:26:02PM +0000, Peter Biechele wrote:
> 
> Thanks for the fast answer to this „FAQ-Question“.
> 
> But the reason for the question was:
> Is it possible to have a CVS Repository for an /etc directory of an 
> Linux-System ??
> I want to put all the ETC dirs under CVS Control. But of course there are 
> symbolic links in this directory structure.
> 
> Does anybody have an idea on how to use CVS to control /etc directories 
> ??

Hi. I've not used cvs to manage /etc, but I have used cvs to manage
_files_ in /etc. Cvs doesnt really mix well with symbolic links, especially 
since links could be relative to a file outside the archive. Checking the 
cvs module out to a different plce in the file structure would result in 
a broken link.

When I used cvs, I was using it for my boot scripts and some conf files.
Cvs was just a tool for controling changes. I still needed a backup plan.
A tape drive and tar worked just fine. 

To create the initial cvs modules, I just copied the files I wanted in the
archive to an empty directory (maintaining any desired relative directory
structure, ignoring symbolic links) and imported it into cvs. Then all
that was needed was to checkout the module in /etc and off I went. A nice
side effect was that I'd set up the repository so that I didnt need to be
logged in as root to work on the files. The less time I spend logged in as
root, the less damage I do :) 

My plan was to be able to restore a working copy of the filesystem from
tape, restore the cvs repository, then checkout/update the cvs controled
files in /etc.

I hope that makes sense. My backup software was in charge of restoring the
directory structure, links, etc. Cvs's job was to control a handful of
files so I could roll back changes without shuffling tapes.



--
Mental

"You are not special. You are not a
beautiful or unique snowflake. You are
the same decaying organic matter as
everything else."
~Tyler~