From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 24 17:16:21 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 651F31065679 for ; Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:16:21 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bakul@bitblocks.com) Received: from mail.bitblocks.com (mail.bitblocks.com [64.142.15.60]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4AE5F8FC17 for ; Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:16:21 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bitblocks.com (localhost.bitblocks.com [127.0.0.1]) by mail.bitblocks.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7334B5B42; Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:57:48 -0700 (PDT) To: John Baldwin In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:08:45 EDT." <201003231108.45102.jhb@freebsd.org> References: <201003231108.45102.jhb@freebsd.org> Comments: In-reply-to John Baldwin message dated "Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:08:45 -0400." Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:57:48 -0700 From: Bakul Shah Message-Id: <20100324165748.7334B5B42@mail.bitblocks.com> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Another tool for updating /etc X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:16:21 -0000 On Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:08:45 EDT John Baldwin wrote: > or 'cvs up'. If the local changes I made do not conflict, then just merge the > changes automatically (e.g. enabling a serial console in /etc/ttys should not > conflict with $FreeBSD$ changing when moving from 7.2 to 7.3). > > To that end, I wrote a new tool that I think does a decent job of solving > these goals. It does not force you to read the diffs of any files updated in > /etc, but there are other tools available for that. However, if you are ok > with reading UPDATING, commit logs, and/or release notes for that sort of > info, then this tool may work for you. > > It also has a nice feature in that you can generate a 'diff' of your current > /etc tree against the "stock" tree allowing you to easily see what local > changes you have made. I have already found this feature to be far more > useful than I first expected. > > The UI is (hopefully) minimalist. The default output looks like the output of > 'svn up' or 'cvs up'. > > If you'd like to give it a shot, you can find the script and manpage at > http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/etcupdate/ There is a README file that gives a > brief overview and instructions on how to bootstrap the needed metadata before > the first update. There is also an HTML version of the manpage. Looks good! But I wonder... why not build something like this around cvs? Basically a three way merge is exactly what we want for /etc, right? cvs because it is in the base system. I used to maintain /etc changes in cvs and that was useful in keeping track of configuration changes on shared machines.