Setup

etckeeper version:

etckeeper/stable,stable,now 1.18.16-1 all [residual-config]

Environment:

Linux Debian-1101-bullseye-amd64-base 5.10.0-9-amd64

Installed via apt install etckeeper on Debian 11 Bullseye, so using Debian's https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/etckeeper.

In case only downstream Debian is the culprit, sorry for reporting here and not downstream - but Debian's bugtracker is so awful to use ...

Issue

Despite /etc/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf being configured with VCS="hg", the moment a git directory /etc/.git/ (and/or file /etc/.gitignore?) exists, etckeeper will use git (and e.g. .gitignore instead of .hgignore). Maybe this issue is not limited to Mercurial/hg only, but affects any other VCS (mercurial, bazaar, or darcs) as well.

My scenario

I noticed this issue as I wanted to set up etckeeper with Mercurial while still being able to use my own git-managed /etc hierarchy in parallel: use etckeeper to version/backup all /etc files and at the same time have an additional git repository for cherry-picked etc files: etckeeper tracks all files including my custom conf.d/ etc files and package-provided vanilla files; my additional git repository only tracks my custom conf.d/ etc files. Unfortunately, it's not possible to have two git repositories in the same directory (here /etc) due to a git repository's .gitignore location not being configurable, hence my unsuccessful workaround with etckeeper to use hg/Mercurial.

RSS Atom

comment 1

We can see why right in /usr/bin/etckeeper:

if [ -d ".git" ]; then
        VCS=git
elif [ -d ".hg" ]; then
        VCS=hg
elif [ -d "_darcs" ]; then
        VCS=darcs
elif [ -d ".bzr" ]; then
        VCS=bzr
fi

So the VCS config is only used to control what etckeeper init does.

See also this todo item about it, with more discussion: ?strong>VCS

Comment by joey — Fri Jan 7 15:09:03 2022

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comment 2

Thank your for the info, I found your mentioned TODO at Give preference to etckeeper.conf over existing repository for defining $VCS.

I was able to accomplish my scenario (one personal git repository with ~~cherry-picked~~ selected configuration files in one repository AND using etckeeper as well) with the following workaround setup:

Set up my personal git repository at the root filesystem location /.
Configure etckeeper to use mercurial/hg.

I noticed that (at least in Debian 11.2 bullseye) apt install etckeeper automatically runs etckeeper init, thereby setting up a git-based etckeeper according to the default etckeeper.conf file - but I want hg. I looked around, but there doesn't currently seem to be a way (e.g. debconf) to configure etckeeper at pre-installation time to use hg other than having an appropriate /etc/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf file in place before running apt install etckeeper. Or is there? Thanks for your help!

Comment by Abdull — Tue Jan 11 11:56:28 2022

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