dotlink 0.1.1

Automate deployment of dotfiles to local paths or remote hosts

Dotlink is a simple script to automate deploying an arbitrary set of “dotfiles” from a repository to either a local path or even a remote host using ssh/scp.

Dotlink does not manage the dotfiles themselves, but uses a simple YAML file mapping dotfile names in the repository to their ultimate location relative to the target path. This allows you to have files without the dot prefix, for instance, or avoid replicating deep directory structures to track a single file.

setup

To install Dotlink system-wide:

# pip install dotlink

Or if you want to hack on Dotlink a bit, clone the repo and run:

# python setup.py develop

usage

You’ll first need to create a mapping file in the root of your dotfile repository name “dotfiles.yaml”, containing a root-level dictionary where keys are the file name in the repository, and the values are the path and filename relative to your home directory that the files will be installed to.

An example mapping might look like:

# dotfiles.yaml aliases: .alias bashrc: .bashrc profile: .profile htop: .config/htop/htoprc vim: .vim vimrc: .vimrc

Once the mapping is in place, run Dotlink, and tell it where you repository is, as well as where you want it to deploy to:

$ dotlink -s path/to/repository [[[user@]host:]path/to/target]

Targets can include local paths, or remote paths accessible via ssh by providing a hostname as well as username if different than your current login. If you don’t give a target path, Dotlink will assume you want to deploy to your home directory; this works for remote targets too.

advanced

If you’d like to embed Dotlink within your dotfile repository, dotfile/dotfile.py is a self-contained script, specifically to allow for this use case. Simply copy dotfile.py into your repository; its only external dependency beyond core Python is the PyYAML library.

legal

Dotlink is copyright 2013 John Reese. It is licensed under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more details.