configfiles

A system to synchronize configuration files across multiple machines, the smart way.

Installation

$ pip install configfiles

or

$ pip install -r requirements.txt
$ python setup.py install

Design

configfiles works on a model of storing and incrementally updating config files, or more accurately scripts to update config files. These scripts are usually autogenerated from file changes, but can be customized to do things like install dependencies or fill-in system specific information.

Unlike git, the updates to these files are stored as a sequence of scripts, as opposed to a graph of diffs. This makes for less powerful branching, but a much simpler internal model. In future versions this may be amended, but it works better for something based around scripts.

The scripts in question are not actually shell scripts, rather small pieces of python for better interoperability. Most of the time they are auto-generated.

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Be aware that when using configfiles you open yourself to running arbitrary python code at the same privilege as your account, and be sure to only sync to trusted repos

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Usage

There are a few main operations in configfiles, the first being sync, which updates a system to the latest version of a config repo.

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Do note that once sync-ed to a repo, one must desync to use another one

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$ configfiles sync config.someserver.url:repo/path

The server path may be omitted to use the last sync-ed server.

To update a configfiles repo, one may use the update operation, which takes the diff of a file and adds it as a script. The net result is that the file is "checked-in" to the repo.

$ configfiles update .zshrc

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Do note that configfiles paths operate relative to the current user folder by default, and update will warn against adding files below the home directory.

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To use a custom python script as an update method, use add.

$ configfiles add my_updater.py modifies_file.rc

Scripts are ran in the home directory, with full access guaranteed to the configfiles public API.

To revert a change made by sync, use rollback.

$ configfiles rollback <number of changes>

or (with caution)

$ configfiles rollback --remote <number of changes>

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Do note that rollback only cares about files, and there is currently no way to create transactional scripts (i.e. a custom rollback script) The main purpose of the scripting functionality is to customize files for machine-specific things, which is why it is designed this way.

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Before using any of the above, a configfiles repo must be init-ed.

init creates a new repo with no additional scripts.

$ configfiles init config.someserver.url:repo/path
$ configfiles sync config.someserver.url:repo/path
$ configfiles update .zshrc <etc>

Further documentation

TODO, refer to code comments for more information

Server requirements

A server hosting a configfiles repo must support sftp, and that is it. There is no "configfiles server", the entire system's code is client-only

Changelog

0.3.1:

• bugfixes

0.3.0:

• added ability to sync specific number of times
• bugfixes

0.2.1:

• bugfix release

0.2.0:

• initial release