Dispatch-conf

The is Article description::a utility included with [[Portage and used on Gentoo to safely manage configuration file updates.]] It allows system administrators to review then accept or reject upstream configuration changes, which frequently happens when packages are updated. It is capable of integrating with to allow for version-controlled configuration file management.

RCS (revision control system) integration
When is configured to integrate with, it will store all changes in.

Install revision control system:

This process of configuration is as simple as editing the configuration file to include the following:

Administrators can then view the differences using the utilities like  as well as roll-back changes using. The utilities work with file locking itself, so the moment you want to use it in your administrative tasks, understand that:


 * only stores the changes made when the package suggests to alter the file. Changes you made afterwards are not registered yet
 * when you check out a file, will want to write the file to the file system, so make sure you backup your existing file first, or work with standard output (see later)
 * if you want to check in a file, you first need to take a lock on said file. Also, make sure you opt not to remove the working file

To view the commit history on :

{{Cmd|rlog /etc/config-archive/etc/conf.d/udev,v|output= RCS file: /etc/config-archive/etc/conf.d/udev,v Working file: udev head: 1.1 branch: locks: strict access list: symbolic names: keyword substitution: kv total revisions: 2;    selected revisions: 2 description: Archived config file.

revision 1.1 date: 2011/06/15 18:14:59; author: root;  state: Exp; branches: 1.1.1; dispatch-conf update.

revision 1.1.1.1 date: 2011/06/15 18:14:59; author: root;  state: Exp;  lines: +3 -2 dispatch-conf update.

=
================================================================ }}

If you want to roll back to a particular version, a simple way to do so is to check out a previous version:

After making your final changes (you can use the backup to merge any changes made later), check in the file again:

Edit the file, and finally check in the changes:

Color diff output
Reading changes in all grey text can be a bit annoying. Fortunately, modern versions of have a   switch, which displays the different types of changes in different colors. Configuration is simple - change the diff line in the config file to:

Alternatively, the package can be used. Install colordiff with:

Then change the config to use it:

Use (g)vimdiff to merge changes
You may wish to try (g)vimdiff instead of the default method of merging files. To do this, modify the configuration file by changing the merge line:

You can also use vimdiff (for gvimdiff use  option moreover) to merge changes. If you want to use neovim, replace  at the end with

Some useful commands related to merge with vimdiff:

"]c" : jump to next change "[c" : jump to previous change "CTRL-W " or "CTRL-W " : go to the other window "do" (diff obtain): get the text of the highlighted block from the other window "dp" (diff put) : put the text of the highlighted block to the other window "zo" : open fold under the cursor "zc" : close fold under the cursor "zr" : open all folds ":wqa" : write and exit

See the Vim documentation for further help.

Using imediff2 to merge changes
Another merge alternative is. This simple tool allows using just a few keys to toggle between options. Primarily, this is done through the or  keys. Also, the key will open the user's favorite editor set by the EDITOR shell variable for manual merging.

To use with dispatch-conf, first install imediff2:

Then, configure :