etckeeper

I’ve always tended to make configuration changes first and messily back them out later when they end up not working. Since I probably won’t lose that bad habit any time soon, the next best thing I can do is make the second half of this process easy. Enter etckeeper, which puts /etc under version control. In addition to wrapping your favorite DVCS, etckeeper also keeps track of file permissions for sensitive data and integrates with common package managers. The way it uses the user’s “real” login name instead of root for commits is a nice touch, useful for keeping track of who did what on servers with multiple admins.