Manage Dotfiles Using Bare Git Repo

Set up a local bare git repo

# Create a bare git repo
git init --bare $HOME/.dotfiles

# Config
# "dcf" stanfords for "dotconfig"
alias dcf="/usr/bin/git --git-dir $HOME/.dotfiles --work-tree=$HOME"
# Ignore untracked files in $HOME
dcf config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no

# Move untracked dotfiles
mkdir $HOME/.dotfiles/zsh
cp $ZSH_CUSTOM/zsh/*.zsh $HOME/.dotfiles/zsh/
rm $HOME/.dotfiles/zsh/example.zsh

# Add files
dcf add $HOME/.*shrc
dcf add $HOME/.p10k.zsh
dcf add $HOME/.vimrc
dcf add $HOME/.dotfiles/zsh/*.zsh
# Check status
dcf status
# Be sure to check branch when committing
dcf commit

# For different dotfiles set (Desktop/Server/WSL/Termux)
dcf branch void
dcf checkout void
dcf rm $HOME/.dotfiles/zsh/deb.zsh
...
dcf commit

Push to Git Hosting Website

Create a repo in GitHub web (make sure do NOT add a README as this will create a main branch) beforehand.

# Store the key as dcf_rsa
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
# Copy the pubkey and add as deploy key in the REPO settings
cat ~/.ssh/dcf_rsa.pub | co

dcf remote add origin git@github.com:Vinfall/dotfiles.git
# Add
dcf config core.sshcommand "ssh -i ~/.ssh/dcf_rsa"
# Should set up remote when pushing for the first time
dcf checkout void
dcf push --set-upstream origin void
dcf checkout server
dcf push --set-upstream origin server
...
# No need to set upstream next time
dcf checkout void
dcf push

Restore in a new system

# Get the SSH key somehow
scp or what-so-ever
# Set read only permission
chmod 400 $HOME/.ssh/dcf_rsa*
# Add Git hosting service SSH fingerprint to known_hosts
# Check Meta - GitHub Docs
# https://docs.github.com/en/rest/meta#get-github-meta-information
touch $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts
tee -a $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts &>/dev/null << "EOF"
github.com ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIOMqqnkVzrm0SdG6UOoqKLsabgH5C9okWi0dh2l9GKJl
github.com ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 AAAAE2VjZHNhLXNoYTItbmlzdHAyNTYAAAAIbmlzdHAyNTYAAABBBEmKSENjQEezOmxkZMy7opKgwFB9nkt5YRrYMjNuG5N87uRgg6CLrbo5wAdT/y6v0mKV0U2w0WZ2YB/++Tpockg=
github.com ssh-rsa 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
EOF

# Add ignore to avoid weird recursion problems (No need if not created the folders before)
#echo ".dotfiles" >> .gitignore
# Clone
# No need to worry about the global flag, we'll discard .gitconfig before checkouting out the branch anyway
git config --global core.sshCommand "ssh -i ~/.ssh/dcf_rsa"
git clone --bare git@github.com:Vinfall/dotfiles.git $HOME/.dotfiles
alias dcf="/usr/bin/git --git-dir $HOME/.dotfiles --work-tree=$HOME"

# Backup orig dotfiles in conflict
mkdir -p .config-backup && \
dcf checkout 2>&1 | grep -E "\s+\." | awk {'print $1'} | \
xargs -I{} mv {} .config-backup/{}

# Setup local git config again
dcf config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no
dcf config --local core.sshCommand "ssh -i ~/.ssh/dcf_rsa"
dcf checkout <branch>

# Chores
omz reload
touch $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wgetrc
mkdir -p $XDG_STATE_HOME/zsh
touch $XDG_STATE_HOME/zsh/history
# Lingering useless dotfiles
rm .bash_history .gitconfig .viminfo .zshrc

Improvement

Use $ZSH_CUSTOM

Use $ZSH_CUSTOM to avoid manually link/copy *.zsh into the custom plugin folder.

Lazy-load custom plugin

Merge multiple branches into main is tedious which can be avoided by lazy-loading zsh custom plugins. Although I do not lazy-load plugins, I do write several if statement to make sure dumb zsh doesn’t load unused custom plugins:

# slackware.zsh
# If `os-release` contains slackware
if [[ -f /etc/os-release ]]; then
if cat /etc/os-release | grep --quiet --ignore-case --extended-regexp "slackware"; then

alias new-alias="whatever-command"

fi
fi

# wsl.zsh
# If kernel name contains wsl
if uname -r | grep --quiet --ignore-case --extended-regexp "wsl"; then

alias new-alias="whatever-command"

fi

# termux.zsh
# If $TERMUX_VERSION is not null
if [[ -n $TERMUX_VERSION ]];then

alias new-alias="whatever-command"

fi

Add .gitignore

Add .gitignore to avoid accidentally adding whole $HOME to repo and (again) accidentally stashed innocent dotfiles, which would cause severe damage & take ages to recover w/o backup.

This is not as straightforward as it seems to be:

alias dcf="/usr/bin/git --git-dir $HOME/.dotfiles --work-tree=$HOME"

There are --git-dir and --work-tree, we should put .gitignore in --work-tree aka $HOME. It’s a bit ugly and actually I wish to switch --work-tree now that I’m aware of XDG Base Directory Specification, so I won’t have yet another file in $HOME.

An example .gitignore(N.B. I don’t version control files inside $XDG_DATA_HOME due to privacy leakage concern, YMMV):

# .gitignore
.cache
.gnupg
.ssh
.config/zsh/.zcompdump*
.config/zsh/oh-my-zsh
.local/share
.local/state

Remove unused objects

After managing dotfiles for nearly a month, I notice a lot of orphan objects in .dotfiles/objects/* when running dcf status -u (thanks to the optimization of Lazy-load custom plugin).

Git is so complicated that it can never have too many ways to achieve this. I just cowardly run git repack && git prune-packed to remove most of the unused objects. Now dcf status -u returns very few results.

One more thing

It’s also possible to store the whole restoring commands as a code snippet. Create a short URL and make a call like:

curl -Lks https://short.link/dcf-restore | /bin/bash

Adding the respective git hosting site IP to known_hosts before git clone can have one less manual input.

The code snippet (which I did NOT use as my infrastructure is far more complicated instead of using the same distro I may try it one day now that the methodology is significantly personalized and improved):

#!/bin/bash

touch $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts
tee -a $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts &>/dev/null << "EOF"
github.com ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIOMqqnkVzrm0SdG6UOoqKLsabgH5C9okWi0dh2l9GKJl
github.com ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 AAAAE2VjZHNhLXNoYTItbmlzdHAyNTYAAAAIbmlzdHAyNTYAAABBBEmKSENjQEezOmxkZMy7opKgwFB9nkt5YRrYMjNuG5N87uRgg6CLrbo5wAdT/y6v0mKV0U2w0WZ2YB/++Tpockg=
github.com ssh-rsa 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
EOF

git config --global core.sshCommand "ssh -i ~/.ssh/dcf_rsa"
git clone --bare git@github.com:Vinfall/dotfiles.git $HOME/.dotfiles
function dcf {
   /usr/bin/git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME $@
}

rm .config/neofetch/config.conf
mkdir -p .config-backup
dcf checkout main
if [ $? = 0 ]; then
  echo "Checked out dotfiles.";
  else
    echo "Backing up old dotfiles.";
    dcf checkout 2>&1 | grep -E "\s+\." | awk {'print $1'} | xargs -I{} mv {} .config-backup/{}
fi;
dcf config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no
dcf config --local core.sshCommand "ssh -i ~/.ssh/dcf_rsa"
dcf checkout main

touch $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wgetrc
mkdir -p $XDG_STATE_HOME/zsh
touch $XDG_STATE_HOME/zsh/history
rm .bash_history .gitconfig .viminfo .zshrc

References

Vinfall's Geekademy

VENI VIDI VICI

Ease the pain of replicating dotfiles on my distro cluster.

Created 2022-09-30
Updated 2023-03-25
Contain 964 words
GPG Key html asc

#file #git #github