linux4noobs @programming.dev ace_garp @lemmy.world 1 yr. ago

Editing config files safely

You can backup your config files before editing them, like this:

cp configbeingedited.conf configbeingedited.conf__orig_datestring

This way, when things break or don't function how you like, you can easily copy the original config file back into position, restoring the original functionality.

12 comments

I generally keep my config files stored in the GitHub repo for version control, and then actual secrets are pulled dynamically from a secret store.
- Secret store? Mind sharing links on what that means? I assume it's something you can self host?
  
  Specifically AWS secrets manager, I know there's others like if you're using Ansible there's Ansible Vault. The point is that it's a separate service that keeps all your secrets encrypted at rest and to access them you need an initial authentication.
Go ahead and graduate to etckeeper if you're targeting /etc
- Never knew about this tool, good to know!
- A good tip for setting up a tool to automate this process.
- I tend to make a .bak file before changes. There is nothing worse than fixing one config item only to realize later something else broke and not being sure what it was that changed and no easy way to revert. I'm guilty of having many .bak configs that are poorly named. I hadn't heard of etckeeper before. That looks real handy for me. Thanks for sharing
Some Zsh:

bak () { emulate -L zsh for 1 { cp -i $1 $1.bak ls -l $1 $1.bak } }
- This is a clean way to make your own new command called 'bak', to automate making a second copy of the file.

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