git-home-history show "myfile.txt" as of 2 days ago git-home-history show "myfile.txt" as of 1979-02-26 18:30:00
git-home-history - a tool to track the history and make backups of your home directory
git-home-history is a script that simplifies keeping track of changes you make in your home directory. It is based on the excellent Git toolkit, described at http://git.or.cz/.
You should be familiar with Git to use git-home-history. This manual explains how you can keep track of your home directory. It also shows how you can back up the the entire history of your home directory to other systems/devices for more safety.
Set up a git repository (.git) and a .gitignore file in your home directory.
Save your home history to your repository. You can run this from wherever you are in the filesystem
Outputs the content of <file>, as stored as of <time_spec>.
Example:
git-home-history show "myfile.txt" as of 2 days ago git-home-history show "myfile.txt" as of 1979-02-26 18:30:00
Outputs a GPG-ed TAR (with suggested extension: .git.tar.gpg) to <file>. Note that <file> can be - to send to stdout. The archive is encrypted symmetrically with a password.
Example:
git-home-history archive-to /tmp/home-at-machineX.git.tar.gpg
git-home-history archive-to - \
| ssh me@remote 'cat > home-machineA.git.tar.gpg'
Adds all modifications in file or directory to the history store, then removes the file or directory. Useful to clean up the home directory.
Example:
$ ls dirA dirB $ git-home-history eat dirA $ ls dirB
Shows files that are ignored. To change what should be untracked from now on, edit \~/.gitignore. If a file is newly ignored, you need to commit before seing it as ignored.
Shows all files in the last commit, or, optionally, as of time_spec.
Reinitialize (read delete all) ~/.git/\* and \~/.gitignore.
Removes all commits older than <time_spec>. It is a risky operation for now. Not recommended.
Example:
$ git-home-history rm-older-than 2 days ago $ git-home-history rm-older-than 1979-02-26 18:30:00
git-home-history is simple to use. You must first setup your history store with git-home-history init, then tell it what to ignore from your home directory. Once this is done, you simply have to run git-home-history commit whenever you want to store the current state of your home directory in your Git history store.
Initializing and doing a first commit is done like this:
# Go back to home $ cd ~ # First, create the needed files (in fact, '.git/' and '.gitignore') $ git-home-history init # The script wants us to edit the .gitignore # This is an important step to tell what will *not* be # tracked by git-home-history $ nano .gitignore # Check what will be ignored $ git-home-history ls-ignored-files # Then we make the first commit, which can be a long operation # depending on the size of your home directory $ git-home-history commit # ...very long... # ...zzz... # Do not worry, the next commits will be blazingly fast!
Subsequently, saving is very easy. Simply do git-home-history commit wherever you are in the filesystem.
Example:
$ cd mywork/blabla/ $ touch testing-testing-mic-check # Commit the current state! $ git-home-history commit $ cd ~/my-other-thing-to-do/ $ touch po-tah-to $ mv po-tah-to po-tey-to # Commit the current state! $ git-home-history commit # Now you can examine the changes by doing $ cd ~ $ git log # -or, visually- $ gitk
You can use the various Git tools to efficiently clone your history repository to remote machines you know and trust (if not, use the archive-to command to send encrypted tarballs).
For example:
# ... do your first commit ... (see section above)
# Go back to home
$ cd ~
# Login to a remote machine and prepare a backup directory
$ ssh myname@remotemachine.net \
'GIT_DIR=bak-from-machineA.git git-init'
# The following sets up a Git 'remote' shortcut. See 'git help push'
# for more details on remotes and URL formats
$ nano .git/remotes/remotemachine.net
# Add this to your 'remotemachine.net' file :
URL: ssh://myname@remotemachine.net/~myname/bak-from-machineA
Push: master:master
# Now, everytime you whish to copy your history to the
# 'remotemachine.net' remote repository, simply run
$ cd ~
$ git push remotemachine.net
Whenever you git push, all the previous commits and associated files will be copied to the remote place. Remember to run git-home-history commit before pushing to a remote backup repository if you want the current state of your home directory to be sent as well.
You can set up multiple remotes and use different transfer schemes (HTTP, HTTPS, rsync, etc.) depending on your particular needs. See the git push help page for more information.
Since Git stores its data in your home directory, under .git, you can simply mount a remote filesystem as .git (or symlink to a remote mount) before initializing the history store. This will effectively store the data on the remote filesystem/device (make sure you know and trust the remote host since it will store all your personal data).
This technique is useful if you do not have sufficient space to store your history locally.
Example:
# ... *do not* initialize and do a first commit *yet* ... # # note: see 'Start anew' below if you want to restart... # Go back to home $ cd ~ # Plug in your USB device... appears under /media/disk # ...or have some network filesystem mounted to /media/disk $ mkdir /media/disk/bak-machineA.git $ ln -s /media/disk/bak-machineA.git .git # ... now, do your initialization and first commit (see above)
Important: this feature is risky to use, for now. We need a Git guru to double-check… (are you one? care to help?)
You can remove commits that were made before a certain date by using such commands:
$ git-home-history rm-older-than yesterday $ git-home-history rm-older-than 1 month ago $ git-home-history rm-older-than 1 month 2 weeks 3 days 1 hour 1 second ago $ git-home-history rm-older-than 1979-02-26 18:30:00
This will rewrite the history of commits and may change objects in your repository. If you were syncing with git tools (such as git push), you will probably have to remove the remote repository and re initialize it. Really, use at your own risks (for now).
You can delete all your previous commits by issuing:
$ git-home-history rm-all
On most UNIX systems, you can simply run, as a user:
$ crontab -e # You can add this line: * */2 * * * /path/to/git-home-history commit >/dev/null 2>&1 # It tells the scheduled commands daemon to run # 'git-home-history commit' every 2 hours. # You can make sure it is working by doing (in 2 hours +) $ cd ~ $ git log
There is a hook that, at commit, writes all permissions to a special file, and, at checkout, restores them. The script is contrib/hooks/setgitperms.perl in the Git source code. Read the script itself to know more. We do not (yet) support it or know much about it.
If you have Git projects in your home, their contents will not be stored. Git does not add any subdirectory that contains another Git repository.
You can visit the website at http://jean-francois.richard.name/ghh/ to stay updated on the development.
You can visit the group discussion page at http://groups.google.com/group/git-home-history, and subscribe to the mailing-list.
Jean-Francois Richard <jean-francois@richard.name>