4 ms·

Keep your dot files in github. Grab them. No internet, I bet you have them on your laptop that you are ssh'd to the server from. SCP them over. Heck, cut and pa

Keep your dot files in github. Grab them. No internet, I bet you have them on your laptop that you are ssh'd to the server from. SCP them over. Heck, cut and paste them if needed. If things are so bad nether of these work you have bigger issues and need to consider a design with some redundancy. Clos fabrics and VM/containers and if you have to have bare metal then you should have more then one (cluster or behind a SLB). There is no excuse for a single point of failure in 2017. Not trying to sound like an ass but.... You did say it was years ago, so what I said seems to be true for today, no judgment on your situation years ago. My first major shit, got to fix it was on Solaris 2.51 so that shows my age. I bind bash and tmux to vim keymaps. If that is not on the box it is the first thing I fix. I will be fast to resolve the issue if my fingers just work as I have trained them :)

wyclif 10y ago
Yep, I don't understand why people think you can't clone your dotfiles and copy over your ~/.tmux.conf to your home directory on the server. It's the first thing I do when I get an account set up, along with the ~/.zshrc and ~/.vimrc, and I have it all automated as a script. Makes everything easy.
- heywire 10y ago
  I'm willing to bet many employers really don't like their employees putting personal config files on a production server...
  - myrandomcomment 10y ago
    Source is a great command as are flags that point at which configuration to use when you start something. So...
  - greenleafjacob 10y ago
    At my employer, we have unix accounts for every employee, and the system automatically synchronizes your dotfiles to each server.
    - solipsism 10y ago
      On a production server? You're doing it wrong.
      - symlinkk 10y ago
        what's the alternative?
        tbrock 10y ago
        Just learn the default key bindings.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
        Why? This lets admins log in as themselves (leaving an auditable trail) with access to their own dotfiles to debug and analyze on the fly. Even with ex. Ansible for managing and ex. Nagios for monitoring, being able to use a shell to diagnose and fix novel issues is invaluble. If you've got a better solution, please do share. (Sincerely: if you can make my job easier, I'm happy to listen)
  - hibbelig 10y ago
    What do they gain from me having to type "ls -lah" instead of "ll"?
    - rahoulb 10y ago
      What if their contracts with their customers state everything that deployed is from an audited source in order to leave no loopholes in the event of a data breach? And if there is a serious data breach you better be able to prove that you never installed anything malicious or dodgy on there.
      - klibertp 10y ago
        > What if their contracts with their customers state everything that deployed is from an audited source in order to leave no loopholes in the event of a data breach? Just delete the configs after you're done? I place all my dotfiles in a directory, usually in ~/mgmnt/. Then I have a little shell script, which backs up all the dotfiles I need found in ~/ and symlinks the ones from the directory. It's .zshrc, .bashrc, .tmux.conf, .gitconfig, .emacs.d, and probably a couple of other config files. I only needed to do this a couple of times, but reverting such "installation" is as easy as a couple of rm/mv commands so I didn't even feel the need to write a script for this.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    Using Emacs config files as an example, what's the issue with storing config files on a server? Even if it's a 'production' server it's not like they contain much in the way of sensitive information. Does it matter if others have access to a list of keybindings, aliases, colour schemes, plugins, etc...?
    - wyclif 10y ago
      Especially if your dotfiles are in a public repository anyway.
  - wyclif 10y ago
    To be clear, I'm talking about your user account, not root or anything like that.
Lxr 10y ago
This works fine if your configuration contains nothing too custom. Typically after copying my dotfiles I have to edit them quite substantially to make them actually work - mainly because they rely on outside sources (in .tmux.conf, stuff like `set-option -g default-command "reattach-to-user-namespace -l bash"`, in .vimrc it's usually colours, clipboard hacks etc that break). Maybe I should have a second, trimmed down version with no outside dependencies.
- zachlatta 10y ago
  Check out https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm. It has a hook system, so you can have it automatically run commands to install external dependencies – stuff like vim or Emacs plugins.
- myrandomcomment 10y ago
  For some of these files you can add logic to check for the system it is on. For example (on iPad, do not have the files to look at now..will try to post later) my bash and tmux configuration check to see if: Linux or OS X (for terminal setting) If I am in tmux session already.
- pyre 10y ago
  That's why I break out things that are platform-dependent. E.g.: if-shell "[ $(uname) = 'Darwin' -a -f ~/.tmux.macos.conf ]" "source-file ~/.tmux.macos.conf" Technically `reattach-to-user-namespace` is a macOS-specific hack to get tmux working, so there's no need to jam it into your standard config.
Amezarak 10y ago
I manage hundreds of servers that are not connected to the Internet, to which I cannot connect any device without management approval, and which are redundant, but which are periodically reflashed and/or replaced with a whole new set with a 'clean' image, less dotfiles. I keep my dotfiles short and sweet, because it's tedious to retype and I need the defaults to still be instinctive when I lose them.

wyclif 10y ago

Yep, I don't understand why people think you can't clone your dotfiles and copy over your ~/.tmux.conf to your home directory on the server. It's the first thing I do when I get an account set up, along with the ~/.zshrc and ~/.vimrc, and I have it all automated as a script. Makes everything easy.

heywire 10y ago
I'm willing to bet many employers really don't like their employees putting personal config files on a production server...
- myrandomcomment 10y ago
  Source is a great command as are flags that point at which configuration to use when you start something. So...
- greenleafjacob 10y ago
  At my employer, we have unix accounts for every employee, and the system automatically synchronizes your dotfiles to each server.
  - solipsism 10y ago
    On a production server? You're doing it wrong.
    - symlinkk 10y ago
      what's the alternative?
      - tbrock 10y ago
        Just learn the default key bindings.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
      Why? This lets admins log in as themselves (leaving an auditable trail) with access to their own dotfiles to debug and analyze on the fly. Even with ex. Ansible for managing and ex. Nagios for monitoring, being able to use a shell to diagnose and fix novel issues is invaluble. If you've got a better solution, please do share. (Sincerely: if you can make my job easier, I'm happy to listen)
- hibbelig 10y ago
  What do they gain from me having to type "ls -lah" instead of "ll"?
  - rahoulb 10y ago
    What if their contracts with their customers state everything that deployed is from an audited source in order to leave no loopholes in the event of a data breach? And if there is a serious data breach you better be able to prove that you never installed anything malicious or dodgy on there.
    - klibertp 10y ago
      > What if their contracts with their customers state everything that deployed is from an audited source in order to leave no loopholes in the event of a data breach? Just delete the configs after you're done? I place all my dotfiles in a directory, usually in ~/mgmnt/. Then I have a little shell script, which backs up all the dotfiles I need found in ~/ and symlinks the ones from the directory. It's .zshrc, .bashrc, .tmux.conf, .gitconfig, .emacs.d, and probably a couple of other config files. I only needed to do this a couple of times, but reverting such "installation" is as easy as a couple of rm/mv commands so I didn't even feel the need to write a script for this.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  Using Emacs config files as an example, what's the issue with storing config files on a server? Even if it's a 'production' server it's not like they contain much in the way of sensitive information. Does it matter if others have access to a list of keybindings, aliases, colour schemes, plugins, etc...?
  - wyclif 10y ago
    Especially if your dotfiles are in a public repository anyway.
- wyclif 10y ago
  To be clear, I'm talking about your user account, not root or anything like that.

Lxr 10y ago

This works fine if your configuration contains nothing too custom. Typically after copying my dotfiles I have to edit them quite substantially to make them actually work - mainly because they rely on outside sources (in .tmux.conf, stuff like `set-option -g default-command "reattach-to-user-namespace -l bash"`, in .vimrc it's usually colours, clipboard hacks etc that break). Maybe I should have a second, trimmed down version with no outside dependencies.

zachlatta 10y ago
Check out https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm. It has a hook system, so you can have it automatically run commands to install external dependencies – stuff like vim or Emacs plugins.
myrandomcomment 10y ago
For some of these files you can add logic to check for the system it is on. For example (on iPad, do not have the files to look at now..will try to post later) my bash and tmux configuration check to see if: Linux or OS X (for terminal setting) If I am in tmux session already.
pyre 10y ago
That's why I break out things that are platform-dependent. E.g.: if-shell "[ $(uname) = 'Darwin' -a -f ~/.tmux.macos.conf ]" "source-file ~/.tmux.macos.conf" Technically `reattach-to-user-namespace` is a macOS-specific hack to get tmux working, so there's no need to jam it into your standard config.

Amezarak 10y ago

I manage hundreds of servers that are not connected to the Internet, to which I cannot connect any device without management approval, and which are redundant, but which are periodically reflashed and/or replaced with a whole new set with a 'clean' image, less dotfiles. I keep my dotfiles short and sweet, because it's tedious to retype and I need the defaults to still be instinctive when I lose them.