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dirhist utility -- History of changes in one or several directories

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Designed to run from cron. Uses different, simpler approach than the etckeeper. Does not use GIT or any other version control system as they proved to be of questionable utility , unless there are multiple sysadmins on the server. 

Designed to run from cron. Uses different, simpler approach than the etckeeper (and does not have the connected with the usage of GIT problem with incorrect assignment of file attributes when reconverting system files).

If it detects changed file it creates a  new tar file for each analyzed directory. For example /etc,  /root, and /boot

Detects all "critical" changed file, diffs them with previous version, and produces report.

All information by default in stored in /var/Dirhist_base. Directories to watch and files that are considered important are configurable via two config files dirhist_ignore.lst and dirhist_watch.lst which by default are located at the root of  the /var/Dirhist_base tree ( as  /var/Dirhist_base/dirhist_ignore.lst and /var/Dirhist_base/dirhist_watch.lst )

You can specify any number of watched directories and within each directory any number of watched files and subdirectories. The format used is similar to YAML dictionaries, or Windows 3 ini files. If any of "watched" files or directories changes, the utility can email you the report to selected email addresses, to alert about those changes. Useful when several sysadmin manage the same server. Can also be used for checking, if changes made were documented in GIT or other version management system (this process can be automated using the utility admpolice.)

Daily or hourly invocations eventually create the history of changes make in the particular directory which is helpful for a forensic investigation. The classic example is conflicting actions of multiple sysadmin on /etc/ files. It was actually written after one such SNAFU happened about 10 years ago.

Also can be used for recovery of configuration files. For example, when you accidentally propagate authentication related files (passwd, groups, shadow) from RHEL6 to RHEL 7.

Invocation

dirfile <options> [<directory>]

NOTE: If argument is given it is interpreted as the directory and both ignore and watch files are ignored, even if specified

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[Nov 04, 2020] Utility dirhist -- History of changes in one or several directories was posted on GitHub

Designed to run from cron. Uses different, simpler approach than the etckeeper. Does not use GIT or any other version control system as they proved to be of questionable utility , unless there are multiple sysadmins on the server.

Designed to run from cron. Uses different, simpler approach than the etckeeper (and does not have the connected with the usage of GIT problem with incorrect assignment of file attributes when reconverting system files).

If it detects changed file it creates a new tar file for each analyzed directory. For example /etc, /root, and /boot

Detects all "critical" changed file, diffs them with previous version, and produces report.

All information by default in stored in /var/Dirhist_base. Directories to watch and files that are considered important are configurable via two config files dirhist_ignore.lst and dirhist_watch.lst which by default are located at the root of the /var/Dirhist_base tree ( as /var/Dirhist_base/dirhist_ignore.lst and /var/Dirhist_base/dirhist_watch.lst )

You can specify any number of watched directories and within each directory any number of watched files and subdirectories. The format used is similar to YAML dictionaries, or Windows 3 ini files. If any of "watched" files or directories changes, the utility can email you the report to selected email addresses, to alert about those changes. Useful when several sysadmin manage the same server. Can also be used for checking, if changes made were documented in GIT or other version management system (this process can be automated using the utility admpolice.)

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Last modified: June 04, 2021