git-home

Tracking various personal machine configurations with my $HOME directory as a git bare repo

Impetus

I currently don't have a way to (mostly) effortlessly backup various machine configuration, and as a result, I've lost various config files in a short period of time. It's set me back, timewise, and recrafting these files from memory isn't currently possible while I have an 11 m/o son climbing all over the place. This solution fits the specific case of backing up the mentioned files with the added benefit of version control.

Branches

main - aimed to be a generic config branch for any nix disto (currently biased toward Fedora and Gnome).
panda - my current laptop config. Most changes are in this branch.

Notes

Below code is found here.
I recommended that a git status prompt is used. Git comes with one disabled. Checkout The Git Book. [Bash|Zsh|PowerShell]
These are all the environment variables I'm using with git's prompt. They are all documented in
- /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/completion/git-prompt.sh
Git also has various completions
- /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
- /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/completion/git-completion.tcsh
- /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/completion/git-completion.zsh
I don't turn off untracked file listing for git status; rather, I use a .gitignore file as an include list so that I only see the status of untracked files I care about.
or: git add --force <whatever>; then later add to .gitignore
For sensetive files / directories, I'm using git-crypt from the Fedora repos (but the package is supported in other distros too). Right now, I'm using git-crypt for .gnupg/** and .ssh/** directories.

Git Wrappers for interacting with git / git-home

Wrapper pointing git to bare work-tree and git-dir

export GIT_HOME_DIR=".git-home-$USER-$HOSTNAME"

git-home() {
    # run git and specify the git directory as well as the working tree
    command git --git-dir="$GIT_HOME_DIR" --work-tree="$HOME" "$@"
}

This initializes --bare repo, additionally adds a .gitignore that excludes everything by default. Selectively --force add or create exceptions in .gitignore

git-home-init() {
    # populate a .gitignore file and excluding everything
    echo '*' > "$HOME"/.gitignore
    
    # initialize the bare repo in your home directory
    command git init --bare "$HOME"/"$GIT_HOME_DIR"
}

This git wrapper makes git just work like git. Most solutions I've found use a clunky function or alias, and this feels awkward to me. The function is using a simple conditional to check if in the work-dir, and to use git-home if so; otherwise call the git binary directly. Additionally, no need to add a case for git-crypt. It actually gets passed into git-home and acts like a git module (where you can call, for instance git <module> or git-<module>). So you can call it like git crypt <args>

git() {
    # make the variables we'll use local in scope
    local -a args first rest

    # read-in arguments to an array ARGS
    readarray args < <(printf -- "$*")
    
    # capture the git command, for instance 'push'
    first="${args[0]}"
    
    # capture the rest of the arguments, for instancs '-u origin panda'
    readarray rest < <(printf -- "${args[@]:1:${#args[@]}}")

    # check if in the home dir bare repo.
    # If so, use 'git-home' or 'git-home-init'; otherwise, call the git binary directly
    if [[ $PWD = $HOME ]]; then
	case "$first" in
	    init)
		git-home-init ;;
	    *)
		git-home "$first" "${rest[@]}"
	esac	
    else
	command git "${args[@]}"
    fi
}

Example

Add the above functions to some file that you source. I use a file in $HOME/.bashrc.d/, but you can use .bashrc or .profile depending on your setup, then ...

~$ cd
~$ source ~/.bashrc.d/01-functions.rc
~$ git-home-init
~$ ls -Al | grep -E "$GIT_HOME_DIR|.gitignore"
~$ sep(){ for i in {1..79}; do ((i < 79 )) && printf = || printf "\n"; done; }; sep; cat .gitignore; sep; git status; sep
~$ echo '!.gitignore' >> .gitignore
~$ git status

At this point you should see that .gitignore isn't tracked by git. If you want to keep this change (you most likely will), you can git add -A, or if paranoid, git add .gitignore; then git commit -m ... as usual. If you don't want to keep the change, you can use whatever you want to remove the change (editor, sed), or you can do git restore .gitignore.

Overall I think this setup is pretty handy.

zetaomegagon / git-home