• One of the best features about revision control systems is that nothing is ever deleted, so it would be really handy to store server configs in a distributed revision control system like mercurial. The following is one way this can be accomplished without the administrator is remember to run commits

1. create a script /scripts/commit_configs.sh

   /scripts/commit_configs.sh

   #!/bin/bash
   export PATH=${PATH}:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin
    
   function commit_dir {   if [ -d ${1} ]
           then
                   cd ${1}
                   if [ ! -d .hg ]
                   then
                           hg init
                   fi
                   hg addremove
                   hg commit --config ui.username="`hostname`" -m "Update `date`"
           fi
   }
    
   commit_dir /etc/
   commit_dir /usr/local/etc/

   This script will init a repo to the two etc dirs and update the repo as changes are made to the config in each directory. You can add new entries at the bottom of the script to have make mercurial repos for more config directories.

2. Next link the script /scripts/commit_configs.sh to one for the periodic directories or made a entry in /etc/crontab.

mkdir /scripts
cd /scripts
wget -O commit_configs.sh http://wiki.sebeka.k12.mn.us/_export/code/ubuntu:merc_etc?codeblock=0
chmod 755 commit_configs.sh
/scripts/commit_configs.sh
cd /etc/cron.daily
ln -s /scripts/commit_configs.sh