NAME

       etckeeper - store /etc in git, mercurial, bazaar, or darcs

SYNOPSIS

       etckeeper command [-d directory]

DESCRIPTION

       etckeeper  manages  /etc  be  stored  in a git, mercurial, bazaar, or darcs repository. By
       default each of the commands operates on /etc, but a different directory can be  specified
       to operate on a clone of the /etc repository located elsewhere.

COMMANDS

       init   This  initialises  and  sets  up  a  git,  mercurial,  bazaar,  or darcs repository
              (depending on the VCS setting in /etc/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf). Typically this  is
              run  in  /etc once when starting to use etckeeper on a machine. It can also be used
              to initialise a clone of the /etc repository located elsewhere.

       commit [message]
              Commits all changes in /etc to the repository. A commit message can  be  specified.
              You  may  also  use  the  underlying  VCS to commit manually.  (Note that etckeeper
              commit will notice if a user has used sudo or su to become  root,  and  record  the
              original username in the commit.)

       pre-commit
              This is called as a pre-commit hook. It stores metadata and does sanity checks.

       pre-install
              This  is  called  by  apt's  DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs hook, or by equivalent hooks of
              other package  managers.  It  allows  committing  any  uncommitted  changes  before
              packages are installed, upgraded, etc.

       post-install
              This  is  called  by  apt's DPkg::Post-Invoke hook, or by equivalent hooks of other
              package managers. It commits changes made by packages into the repository. (You can
              also call this by hand after running dpkg by hand.)

       unclean
              This returns true if the directory contains uncommitted changes.

       update-ignore [-a]
              This updates the VCS ignore file. Content outside a "managed by etckeeper" block is
              not touched. This is generally run when upgrading to a new  version  of  etckeeper.
              (The -a switch will add a "managed by etckeeper" block if one is not present.)

       vcs subcommand [options ...]
              You  can  use this to run any subcommand of the VCS that etckeeper is configured to
              run. It will be run in /etc. For example, "etckeeper vcs diff" will run "git diff",
              etc.

       uninit [-f]
              This  command  DESTROYS  DATA!  It is the inverse of the init command, removing VCS
              information and etckeeper's own bookkeeping information  from  the  directory.  Use
              with  caution.  A  typical  use  case would be to run etckeeper uninit, then modify
              etckeeper.conf to use a different VCS, and then run etckeeper init. (The -f  switch
              can be used to force uninit without prompting.)

FILES

       /etc/etckeeper/etckeeper.conf is the configuration file.

       /etc/etckeeper  also contains directories containing the programs that are run for each of
       the above commands.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       ETCKEEPER_CONF_DIR path to configuration directory instead of default /etc/etckeeper.

SEE ALSO

       /usr/share/doc/etckeeper/README.gz

AUTHOR

       Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>

                                                                                     ETCKEEPER(8)