trops 0.2.17

Track operations

Trops is a command-line tool for tracking Linux system operations in an easy-to-use workflow. It helps you interactively develop Ansible roles, Dockerfile, and etc.

Prerequisites

• OS: Linux

• Shell: Bash or Zsh

• Python: 3.8 or higher

• Git: 2.X

Installation

Ubuntu:

apt install python3 python3-pip git
pip3 install trops

CentOS

CentOS’s default Git and Python3 versions might be older than the prerequisites, but you can use Miniconda as shown below.

Miniconda:

wget https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh
chmod +x Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh
./Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh -b -p $HOME/miniconda3
$HOME//miniconda3/bin/conda install git
$HOME/miniconda3/bin/pip install trops
mkdir $HOME/bin
cd $HOME/bin
ln -s ../miniconda3/bin/git git
ln -s ../miniconda3/bin/trops trops
export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH # Add this line to your .bashrc

Quickstart

Activate trops:

export TROPS_DIR="/path/to/your/trops"
test -d $TROPS_DIR || mkdir -p $TROPS_DIR

# for Bash
eval "$(trops init bash)"
# for Zsh
eval "$(trops init zsh)"

Create a trops environment(e.g. myenv):

trops env create --sudo=true myenv

Turn on/off background tracking:

# Turn on
ontrops myenv

# Turn off
offtrops

If you turn it on, every command will be logged, and editing a file will be commited to a bare git repo. So try installing or compiling some application, and then type trops log command:

# Do some work, and then check log
trops log

# Or pass the output to Trops KouMyo(km),
# which unclutters and shows log as a table
trops log | trops km

If you want to use Github or GitLab as a remote private repository, I think it is a good idea. You can link your Trops’ bare git repository to a remote git repository by this:

# At creation
trops env create --git-remote=[e-mail]:username/repository_name.git myenv

# or update
ontrops myenv
trops env update --git-remote=[e-mail]:username/repo_name.git

Now you can make your system operation as an issue-driven project. So create an issue on your Github/GitLab Issue – like “Install barfoo #1” – and then set the issue number as a tag on your Trops like this:

# repo_name#<number>
ttags repo_name#1

# or \#<number>
ttags \#1

Once your work is done, try this:

# Save the log as a markdown table
trops log | trops km --save

# And then, push your trops' commits to the remote repository
trops repo push

As you can see on your issue page, what you’ve done is linked to the issue you tagged. And you can find the markdown table from that page.

And now, you can start working on automating what you’ve interactively done by using Ansible, Salt, Chef, Puppet, or whatever tools down the line.

So, Trops helps you easily try new things, and you don’t have to worry about forgetting what you’ve done. And then, once you’ve got used to it, it will actually help you organize your day-to-day multitasking, which is probably something that a lot of system admins cannot avoid.

Inspiration

Trops is inspired by the idea on this link.

• The best way to store your dotfiles: A bare Git repository

Contributing

If you have a problem, please create an issue or a pull request.

1. Fork it ( https://github.com/kojiwell/trops/fork )

2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)

3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')

4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)

5. Create a new Pull Request