Difference between revisions of "Dotfiles"

Revision as of 03:17, 18 September 2017

This article collects user repositories with custom configuration files, commonly known as dotfiles.

Version control

Managing dotfiles with version control software such as Git helps to keep track of changes, share with others, and synchronize dotfiles across various hosts.

Using gitignore

Keeping a git directory inside the home folder allows to directly keep track of changes. It is recommended to selectively add file contents to the index with git-add(1).

To prevent untracked files (appearing in commits and removed by git-clean(1)), first exclude all files with gitignore(5):

~/.git/info/exclude

*

Then use git add -f, for example:

$ git add -f ~/.config/*

And commit the changes with git-commit(1):

$ git commit -a

Other tools

• dotbot — A minimalist dotfiles manager that can be installed as a git submodule of your dotfiles repository.

https://github.com/anishathalye/dotbot || not packaged? search in AUR

• dotdrop — A tool to manage different versions of your dotfiles on different hosts.

https://github.com/deadc0de6/dotdrop || not packaged? search in AUR

• dotfiles — A tool to make managing your dotfile symlinks in $HOME easy, allowing you to keep all of them in a single directory.

https://github.com/jbernard/dotfiles || dotfiles^AUR

• dotgit — A comprehensive solution to managing your dotfiles.

http://github.com/Cube777/dotgit || dotgit^AUR

• dots — A portable tool for managing a single set of dotfiles in an organized fashion.

https://github.com/EvanPurkhiser/dots || dots-manager^AUR

• etckeeper — Intended to version-control system-wide configuration in /etc. Works by keeping track of permissions and modes which version-control software often ignores. Can use various SCM systems as a backend. Hooks can auto-commit changes to the repository before a system-upgrade.

http://etckeeper.branchable.com/ || etckeeper

• GNU Stow — Can be used to symlink dotfiles from a repository into the $HOME tree. See [1] for more information.

http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/ || stow

• homeshick — git dotfiles synchronizer written in bash.

https://github.com/andsens/homeshick || homeshick-git^AUR

• homesick — Your home directory is your castle. Don't leave your dotfiles behind.

https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick || homesick^AUR

• mackup — a small Python utitlity to keep your application settings in sync.

https://github.com/lra/mackup || mackup^AUR

• Pearl — Package manager for dotfiles, plugins, programs and any form of code accessible via git. Allow to easily share and sync packages across systems and have them ready to work out of the box.

https://github.com/pearl-core/pearl || pearl-git^AUR

• rcm — Can be used to symlink dotfiles from a repository into the $HOME tree.

https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm || rcm^AUR

• vcsh — Allows separating differents modules (e.g., Emacs config vs. zsh config) into individual repositories which can be maintained separately, as opposed to keeping all dotfiles in a single repository. Works with git only.

https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh || vcsh^AUR

• yadm — Manages files across systems using a single Git repository. Provides a way to use alternate files on a specific OS or host. Supplies a method of encrypting confidential data so it can safely be stored in your repository.

https://github.com/TheLocehiliosan/yadm || yadm-git^AUR

Maintaining dotfiles across multiple machines

One way of maintaining dotfiles across various machines across various hosts while still allowing for per-host customizations, is by maintaining a master-branch for all shared configuration, while each individual machine has a machine-specific branch checked out. Host-specific configuration can be committed to the machine-specific branch; as shared configuration is added to the master-branch, the per-machine branches are then rebased on top of the updated master.

Another approach is to put machine-specific configuration into specially commented blocks and to use qualia to automatically uncomment them on each machine. This approach requires less manual work and doesn't cause merge conflicts.

Confidential information

Occasionally, software may keep plain-text passwords in configuration files, as opposed to hooking into a keyring. In these cases, git clean-filters may be handy to avoid accidentally commiting confidential information. E. g., the following .gitattributes file assigns a filter to the file “some-dotfile”:

# .gitattributes
some-dotfile filter=remove-pass

Whenever the file “some-dotfile” is checked into git, git will invoke the filter “remove-pass” on the file before checking it in. The filter must be defined in .git/config, e. g.:

[filter "remove-pass"]
clean = "sed -e 's/^password=.*/#password=TODO/'"

Repositories

See also

• gregswiki:DotFiles
• XMonad Config Archive
• dotshare.it
• dotfiles.github.io