I have some files outside of /etc I want to track (/usr/local/bin/, /usr/lib/systemd/, /boot/loader/entries/*). I suppose the -d option lets you use repos for arbitrary directories, but I would like to keep everything outside of $HOME in one repo as a opposed to a separate repo for /usr/local/bin, /usr/lib/systemd, etc. as they are all related system files.

This suggestion suggests a etckeeper init -d / will work (and presumably ignore everything but those files in directories above, via gitignore) but when I do that, I run out of disk space (the resulting /.git repo is 7.9GB+ until my disk runs out of space. If I do a git init / instead, there's no issues. I suppose the issue is etckeeper init automatically adds all files to the index, resulting in the repo taking up a large amount of space that is proportional to /?

Is it possible to make / a repo ignoring all files except those in the directories above along with etc? Things like .gitignore and showUntrackedFiles = no cannot be applied when etckeeper init -d / cannot set up the repo due to lack of space.

P.S.

A workaround is a hook that copies files outside of /etc into the /etc repo (presumably as a pre-commit hook?) so that they can be tracked. Another hook (assuming it's possible? It wasn't mentioned in that thread but something is needed. Otherwise, a wrapper script) would copy those files back to the appropriate location. This is satisfactory, but duplicate files involved is not ideal.

Any suggestions is much appreciated. etckeeper seems appropriate for my uses because it looks to be a simple git wrapper that preserves metadata (ownership, permissions, etc.) and offers package management integration.