-*- mode: indented-text; mode: auto-fill -*-
file: etc-in-cvs.txt
Time-stamp: <2002-08-09 12:17:53 roel>


These are some tips to put your /etc directory under CVS control. This
is not trivial because CVS does not preserve ownerships and
permissions.

Neither does it save symlinks gracefully, and this although this
procedure leaves them intact, files 'under' a symlink don't end up in
CVS.

Putting /etc in CVS:

* make backup (Surprised?)

* log in as root via su (cvs doesn't allow root commits if you're
  directly logged in on the console. This is NOT a security precaution
  as some people on the CVS discussion list would have you
  believe. It's only for log purposes, see src/commit.c in the CVS
  sources.)

* cd to /etc.
  It's a good (but not mandatory) idea to prepare on or more
  .cvsignore files here. Suggestions for their contents are at the
  bottom of this manual.

* Issue the following commands, adapted to your situation of course:

  cvs -t -d /usr/local/cvs import -ko -m 'First /etc checkin' etc mymachine etc-initial >/tmp/errs 2>&1
  # Replace /usr/local/cvs by your CVSROOT
  # Check errs for inadvertently ignored files! (grep ^I)
  # It's better to have keyword expansion turned off (-ko).

* The next step is an intermediate checkout:

  cd /tmp
  # Do NOT check out directly in /etc! Never!

  cvs -d /usr/local/cvs checkout etc
  cd etc  # NOT slash etc!
  tar cf ../cvs.tar `find . -name CVS`

* And then, we put the CVS subdirs in their final destination:

  cd /etc
  tar xf /tmp/cvs.tar

  # To be sure, this should shut up:
  cvs -nq update

Done!

Be prepared that some utilities which scan a whole directory,
e.g. for scripts to run, sometimes get confused by the presence of a
CVS subdirectory. Most of the time, this is not fatal, just
annoying.  I mean to recall PAM does this with the pam.d directory,
but I'm not certain. Also /etc/skel is copied recursively by user
creation utilities, leaving the poor new user with a CVS subdir in his
homedir. You may want to put 'skel' in the .cvsignore file.

From now on, you can simply 'cvs add' new files. Be careful if you
want to restore (cvs update) a file that was inadvertently deleted;
you should check if ownership and permissions are correct after that.

Suggestions for files to be cvsignored on a Redhat system (don't copy
this blindly, besides cvsignore cannot contain comments):

/etc/.cvsignore
  ld.so.cache    # generated
  mtab           # generated
  adjtime        # generated
  aliases.db     # generated
  locale         # updated annoyingly often
  linuxconf      # is itself a CVS tree
  amandates      # generated by Amanda

/etc/X11/.cvsignore
  applnk         # updated too often and pretty pointless in CVS, IMO

/etc/mail/.cvsignore
  *.db           # generated by sendmail