I'm still learning about these two programs. I haven't use them yet, but I will (at least propellor). It seems to me there exists a bit of functionality overlapping between them: propellor's config file might be enough to describe all your changes you want to /etc for a host..? In this case, etckeeper would appear to be useful just as a "change log".. What's your thoughts on this? Do you use both propellor and etckeeper? -- eugen
I use both. To be fully described by the propellor configuration, it would need to pin the system to a specific version of every package installed on it, and that's generally not practical because there are new security updates all the time. It's useful to have etckeeper keeping track of changes made to configuration during upgrades.
I do find etckeeper generally less useful on those type of systems, but it still more than pays for itself.
Also, when the propellor configuration is changed, it's very useful to have a record of how that change affected the host. While etckeeper's record is limited to /etc, that does cover a large percentage of such changes.
Indeed, I can see how etckeeper provides a very easy way to check exactly what has changed to /etc (also) after a propellor spin. When I'm manually editing an /etc file I know what the changes are, but not so when a tool does it for me. So, it's important to verify, for example, that propellor did indeed what I thought I told it to do (not sure if propellor has an option to report the /etc changes it did).
By using both etckeeper and propellor, which one do you consider to have the authoritative status (power?) over /etc? Do you still manually edit /etc files?