[TriLUG] Keeping track of system changes

[Rick DeNatale]

On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 22:08:52 -0400, Joseph Tate <dragonstrider at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 21:46:08 -0400, Rick DeNatale
> <rick.denatale at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > So do you use a working directory under /home?  You don't check stuff
> > out into /etc... or do you?
> >
> >
> 
> CVS operates with the concept of a repository.  You could have your
> repository on /home and then use /etc as your working copy.

Yes, I know that. But, CVS is really suited for version control for
the source code in software development projects. It's not clear to me
how to map the configuration files which make up part of the /etc
tree, and in some cases are scattered around in other places with the
CVS concept of modules, and how CVS seems to me to want to control the
total contents of the working directory. It's one thing if the working
directory is a programmer's workspace, and another if it represents
the configuration of the running system.

I did a google search on cvs system administration, and it seems that
there are folks who are using cvs with other tools, but I haven't
found any simple examples. There's also an issue in that CVS only
maintains file contents, and not systemy attributes like permissions,
owners, groups and links.

I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not sure how to do it without
screwing things up.