dphys-config Configuration Manager

Project Basics

This project has produced an dphys-config script for doing the work. And an cron job and an init.d script that run this script nightly and at boot time.

This project was spawned from the dphys-admin project, aimed at automatically installing Debian packages onto our systems, but is itsself independant of dphys-admin or any other Debian stuff. It should work on any Unix system, but has only been tested on our Debian Linux 3.1 (sarge) systems and on FreeBSD 6.1.

Project Status

Done are:

• Fetch config file list, host dependant
• Fetch config files driven by above, host dependant
• Merge in host or group dependant "include" files or "if" lines to files
• Install/update config file where it belongs, if it is new or has changed
• Run an postinstall script if config file was installed/updated
• Run an preremove script if a config file shall disappear
• Remove unwanted config files
• Allow non-root to use dphys-config to distribute dot files

• Bugfix non-root mode to actually work, no writing into /etc/
• Changed to also work with newer sed comming with in Debian sid
• Linked to official Debian package in sid (will become etch)
• Code and documentation tidy ups, some from early feedback
• Extensive quoting improvements against possible escaping bugs
• Path handling and other changes to work also on FreeBSD 6.1

• Nothing yet

Todo are:

• Nothing planned

Code Download

• Installation Guide
• entire project: dphys-config.tar.gz
• single files:
  • Makefile, control process
  • dphys-config, automatically install/update config files and run scripts, run by cron or init
  • dphys-config.1, man page for dphys-config
  • dphys-config.example, example config file, containing only the default settings as comments, to adapt to your site
  • site.example, example site config, containing an list of files to process, together with example files used in this list, some of which are quite usefull scripts (expand /etc/fstab, generate /etc/exports from fstab, setup quota from fstab, expand /etc/modules for USB storage, generate XFree config from simple description)
  • cron.d.example, example cron job to run dphys-config every night, for automatic updates
  • init.d.example, example init.d script to run dphys-config every boot, to catchup on missed automatic updates

• Installation Guide
• entire project: dphys-config.tar.gz
• single files:
  • Makefile, control process
  • dphys-config, automatically install/update config files and run scripts, run by cron or init
  • dphys-config.1, man page for dphys-config
  • dphys-config.example, example config file, containing only the default settings as comments, to adapt to your site
  • site.example, example site config, containing an list of files to process, together with example files used in this list, some of which are quite usefull scripts (expand /etc/fstab, generate /etc/exports from fstab, setup quota from fstab, expand /etc/modules for USB storage, generate XFree config from simple description)
  • cron.d.example, example cron job to run dphys-config every night, for automatic updates
  • init.d.example, example init.d script to run dphys-config every boot, to catchup on missed automatic updates

• Installation Guide
• entire project: dphys-config-20060915.tar.gz
• single files:
  • Makefile, control process
  • dphys-config, automatically install/update config files and run scripts, run by cron or init
  • dphys-config.1, man page for dphys-config
  • dphys-config.example, example config file, containing only the default settings as comments, to adapt to your site
  • site.example, example site config, containing an list of files to process, together with example files used in this list, some of which are quite usefull scripts (expand /etc/fstab, setup quota, expand /etc/modules for USB storage, generate XFree config from simple description)
  • cron.d.example, example cron job to run dphys-config every night, for automatic updates
  • init.d.example, example init.d script to run dphys-config every boot, to catchup on missed automatic updates

External Stuff (Links)

• dphys-admin project this project was spawned from
• official Debian Package of dphys-config

This page is by Neil Franklin, last modification 2006.10.20