trops 0.2.25

Track operations

Trops is a command-line tool designed for tracking system operations on destributed Linux systems. It keeps a log of executed commands and modified files, being helpful for developing Ansible roles, Dockerfiles, and similar tasks.

It aims for solving these challenges:

• Keeping track of when and what has been done on which host (for which issue)

• Note-taking for solo system administrators of destributed systems

• “Potentially” bridging the gap between Dev and Ops

Prerequisites

• OS: Linux, MacOS

• Shell: Bash, Zsh

• Python: 3.8 or higher

• Git: 2.28 or higher

Installation

Ubuntu:

sudo apt install pipx git
pipx install trops

Rocky:

sudo dnf install epel-release git
sudo dnf install python3.12-pip
pip3.12 install --user pipx
pipx install trops

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 myenv

Turn on/off background tracking:

# Turn on
ontrops myenv

# Turn off
offtrops

If you turn it on, every command will be logged, and edited file will be commited to its Git repository ($TROPS_DIR/repo/<env>.git). So try getting some work done, like installing or compiling an application, and then execute trops log command to check the log:

# Get your work done, and then check log
trops log

# You can also pass the output to Trops KouMyo(km),
# which unclutters and shows log in a table
trops log | trops km

If you want to use GitHub or GitLab as a remote private repository, which is a good idea, you can link your Trops Git repository to a remote Git repository using this command:

# 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/repository_name.git

Now, Trops should be able to make your system operation a sort of issue-driven project. You can create an issue on the GitHub/GitLab repository, such as “Install barfoo #1,” and then set the issue number as a tag in Trops like this:

# '#<issue number>'
ttags '#1'

# repo_name#<number>
ttags repo_name#1

Once your work is done, you can save and push the log:

# 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 the issue page, what you’ve done is linked to the issue you tagged. You should also be able to 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.

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