A simple CLI tool for copying system files into and out of a central location.
I have multiple computers running Linux that all have their own array of configuration and system files (.bashrc, .vimrc, i3, font files, etc.). Manually updating and propagating changes between systems to maintain a consistent experience is quite painful. configurator solves this problem by synchronizing your files between your system and a central location (I use a git repository).
You will need rust/cargo installed to install configurator.
cargo install --git https://github.com/dchiquito/configurator.gitTo install from source:
cargo install --path .You will also need a directory to keep your configuration files. I recommend a git repository or an NFS mount.
Add the following to your .bashrc/.zshrc/config.fish:
export CONFIGURATOR_REPO=/my/configuration/directory/You can also specify the repository when running configurator:
configurator --repo /my/configuration/directory/ ...
or
configurator -r /my/configuration/directory/ ...configurator will create two directories in the CONFIGURATOR_REPO as necessary:
home- contains all configuration files that live under the user's home directory (~). This allowsconfiguratorto work across different computers with different usernames. File paths withinhomeare relative to~.root- contains all files that don't belong inhome. File paths withinrootare relative to/.
The contents of these directories are also used to determine what files configurator manages.
Note that if you are using a git repository as your CONFIGURATOR_REPO, you still need to commit your changes after running add/stage. This is slightly inconvenient because it essentially adds a third stage to the commit process, but I think the extra control and protection against accidental data loss is valuable.
All paths and references to FILE refer to the system path, not the repository path.
To add a new file to the repository, use configurator add FILE. Using add on a file that is already being managed by configurator overwrites the repository file with the system file.
To copy all files from the repository to the system, use configurator install. This process is interactive to prevent accidental data loss. To install a specific file, use configurator install FILE.
To refresh the contents of the repository with any updated system files, run configurator stage. I assume you are using a git repo as your repository which gives some safety to repository updates, so this command is not interactive. Use caution.
To get a quick list of any modified files, use configurator status. It would be cool eventually to use the git index to determine if files were changed on the system or in the repo, but for now all that is possible is showing that differences are present.
To get a diff of all modified files, use configurator diff. To get a diff of a single file, use configurator diff FILE. It is assumed that the repository is the original and the system files are the modification when deciding -/+ lines in the diff.
To get a list of all system files managed by configurator, use configurator list. I don't currently have a use case for this, but it might come in handy for some script some day.
To work with files which your user does not have read/write permission on, include the --root flag: configurator --root add FILE. You will be prompted for your password.
In my experience, this is only required when installing write protected system files, i.e. anything in /etc/.
By default, cargo install installs the executable into ~/.cargo/bin, which is on your user's PATH. This means that when trying to run commands as root, for example, sudo configurator add /etc/hosts, the configurator executable cannot be located.
If you're aware of a better solution, do let me know.
Tests must be invoked like this:
cargo test -- --test-threads 1This ensures that tests are run serially. Several tests reference the same files and require that the file be present/absent, so it's not possible for them to run in parallel.