On Wed, 1 May 2019 18:43:47 +0200 Erik Josefsson <erik.hjalmar.josefs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Den 2019-05-01 kl. 13:29, skrev Dan Purgert: <snip information> > > > Thanks Dan, I'll start with that method and maybe later I'll try > Jonas' proposal with etckeeper and git. > > But first, in which top level directories could files that change be > located? > > There are quite a few to choose from: bin, boot, dev, etc, home, lib, > lib64, lost+found, media, mnt, opt, proc, root, run, sbin, srv, sys, > tmp, usr and var. > In general, system-wide configurations go in /etc, individual user configurations are in /home/<user>, either in directories beginning with a . or as single files beginning with a dot for simple configurations. If you use a GUI file manager, you may need to configure it to show hidden files. There are more complex applications, such as php and gschem, which look for configuration files in many places. php in particular is tightly tied to a web server, and may have different configurations for different virtual web sites, so may have some configurations stored in the web server's configuration directories. I have experienced the usual php beginner's fury and frustration at changing a parameter in about six different php.ini files, and *still* not having the change work... Yes, most of the time I do remember to restart the web server. The original configuration files for many applications are often stored somewhere in /usr/lib, either being copied into /etc during installation or being referred to in /usr/lib but with additional files in /etc or /home overriding them if the user has made any changes. Nothing under /usr should ever be written to other than during installation, so no modified configuration files *ought* to exist here. On the whole, /etc and the /home dotfiles should hold all of the configurations which will interest you. If you are unable to find something you *know* exists somewhere, then look at the list of installed files for the application, using one of the apt tools. It is increasingly common for the Debian packages of an application (I don't know about other distributions) to use a basic configuration file (e.g. app.conf) and a directory called something like app.conf.d as well. The idea is that the basic file is not ever modified, because it can be replaced during an upgrade and if it has been modified you then get asked that multiple choice question about what you want to do about it during the upgrade. User files placed in the app.conf.d directory will be used to override the basic file, and will never be touched during upgrades, so your configuration changes will (usually) persist through an upgrade. Debian also uses an /etc/default directory, which contains many miscellaneous system configurations in a relatively user-friendly format. Some of the more useful grub boot parameters live here. -- Joe
