[colug-432] Documenting System Installation, Configuration, and Changes

[Rick Troth]

I was going to also say that I keep "versioned" backups of system
config files when possible.  If a change doesn't work, rename ('mv')
the prior copy back into place.  Same time stamp and everything.

Funny story at end, but this habit came in handy again today.  My son
was editing my wife's "start page".  I talked him into using my
versioning tool when he put the new one in place.  A minor section
missing.  Ooopppsss...  Now, it could have been fixed manually.  But
he asked, "Hey, Dad, do you have the old copy some place?", and it was
right there beside the new.  He gets it.  A quick edit of the old,
selective copy-n-paste to the new, done!

99 times out of a hundred, the older copies are not needed.  After a
number of edits, you can get quite a collection.  So how can you clean
them up?  (ie: purge the extras)  I borrowed from DEC VMS.  Their
filesystem had a built-in versioning scheme.  The revision number was
always listed set-off by a semi-colon.  So I use semi-colon and one
can "purge" the backups by removing any files with that character in
the name.  This choice was inspired by VMS but persists because
semi-colon is kind of a bad idea for Unix filenames.  (Arguably worse
than blanks in filenames.)

Here's the funny:  Back in the mid-90s, my buddy Chuck and I had just
landed at a certain software house.  (We were support, not
development.)  One of the primary internet-facing servers was an AIX
box.  I loathe SMIT (but I respect it for some ways), so I had added
an ID the old fashioned way ... edit /etc/passwd.  HOWEVER, being a
careful kinda guy, I had used my versioning tool.  So there was a
"passwd;1" in /etc space.

Now ... ole Chuck and I had worked together before and he recognized
my fingerprints.  "Troth was here."  The extra files do get to be
clutter.  So, mildly annoyed, he decided to clean things up.  He
entered ...

       rm /etc/passwd;1

System responded ...

        sh: 1: command not found

After a minute, and some weird errors, it dawned on him what happened.

Took a while to recover THAT file from backups.  Not sure why no one
(even I!) thought to simply rename the prior version.  Would have been
so much easier.

-- R; <><


On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 12:17 PM,  <jep200404 at columbus.rr.com> wrote:
> How do you document the installation, configuration,
> and changes to a computer? What are the best practices for such?
> This would be for a development computer where experimental
> futzing about is often needed.
>
> I mostly use plain text files with prose in chronological order,
> with occasional screen shots.
>
> I have been STFWing, but just finding stuff for how to install
> various vendors' add-ons.
>
> _______________________________________________
> colug-432 mailing list
> colug-432 at colug.net
> http://lists.colug.net/mailman/listinfo/colug-432



-- 
-- R;   <><
'::1, sweet ::1'