So, some times ago I had this question https://feddit.it/post/22496010 about how to manage my system configuration, storing it on a repository or something.
Many people recommended using ansible to manage the system as a whole, but my system was already up and running, what I wanted instead was something to move around files while fixing up their permissions, so I build a python script for that.
The script grew more refined as time went on, and so now I’m publishing it so anyone can use it.
p.s.: this script is purely python and has no external dependencies!
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What speaks against soft linking with for example GNU stow?
That is a good question. I have considered using gnu stow before building this. But there’s a couple of problems with that.
Git doesn’t follow symlinks, it stores them as links in the repo, so your only option is to keep the files in the repo, and symlink from the config file location to the repo. This is fine for user config files (like from your .config folder), but if you want to keep system config files (like those from /etc) then the git process needs to run as root to modify those files, because symlinked files share permissions and ownership. And even then, git will always create everything as root because it only tracks permission bits, not ownership, so you will need to constantly fix up ownership of your files.
With this tool instead you explicitly tell it the ownership and permission of files, and it takes care of that for you (it still needs root permissions of course).
Is it much different from etckeeper?
Yes, that was one of the tools I considered before making this. I do not remember the precise detail on why, but much like gnu stow is only good for versioning user dotfiles and not system config. Etckeeper is good for storing either your system config files or user’s dotfiles, but not both at the same time. copicat doesn’t care what you use it for because you explicitly tell it all the locations and permissions that you want.
I’m also just using GNU stow into a git repo. It needs no configuration file and just works on any system. Rolling out a new system takes 2 commands. I really don’t see the need for a specialized tool for this use case.
Say you want to store
/etc/ufw/sysctl.confwhich is owned byroot:admand has permission 644 in your repo, but also/etc/ntfy/server.ymlwhich is owned byntfy:ntfywith permissions 664. How do you keep track of this with gnu stow?Ah now I understand the purpose. I only use it for my (personal) dotfiles, which as a term is ambiguous at best, but in my case I mean config files. That was how I essentially misread your title. Obviously all those files are owned by my user, and most live in ~/.config or similar locations beneath my home directory. Things like application preferences, basically.
Obviously your tool also works for this, but I now understand it’s more meant for system wide config files.
Yeah, it’s cool, people are mostly looking for something like your usecase. I got suggested stow or stow-like tools a lot when exploring this. And when they understood what I wanted, they just suggested ansible… Which would work when starting from scratch, but wasn’t right for me. I made copicat mostly because I am actually using it, and then decided to make it public because really I didn’t find anything like it.
I would like to add that I did look at the GitHub before commenting. And I still didn’t get it. Matthew with just explain what it does, but also why is different from the common tools/suggestions that seem similar. Maybe it’s more about highlighting the differences (or the additional capabilities).
