Use Git to back up Linux configuration files in minutes

Use Git to back up Linux configuration files in minutes

When we use a Linux server, we sometimes need to back up the configuration file. The traditional backup method is to copy a file, rename it, and insert some characters at the end of the file.

However, if we use Git, we can easily manage the backup of configuration files. In this article, I will demonstrate how to use Git to implement backup and manage backup. My testing environments are CentOS 7 and RHEL 7.

1. Install Git

[Root @ localhost ~] # Yum install git

Check Git version

[Root @ localhost ~] # Git -- version
Git version 1.8.3.1
[Root @ localhost ~] #

Set initial parameters

Replace the username and email in the following command with your own.

[Root @ localhost network-scripts] # git config -- global user. name "your_user_name"
[Root @ localhost network-scripts] # git config -- global user. email "your_email"

Ii. initialize the Git Database

Because I want to back up the network configuration file, I only need to initialize the Git database in the directory of the network configuration file.

[Root @ localhost ~] # Cd/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
[Root @ localhost network-scripts] # git init
Initialized empty Git repository in/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/. git/
[Root @ localhost network-scripts] #

Enter ls-a in the command line. We can see that the ". git" folder is created.

3. Use the following command to back up data

[Root @ localhost network-scripts] # git add ifcfg-enp0s3
[Root @ localhost network-scripts] #
[Root @ localhost network-scripts] # git commit ifcfg-enp0s3
[Master (root-commit) 1269758] Changes on 26 Oct 2015
1 file changed, 16 insertions (+)
Create mode 100644 ifcfg-enp0s3
[Root @ localhost network-scripts] #

When we execute the second command, it requires you to enter a remark like "Changes on 26 Oct 2015" and save the file.

Run the following command to view git logs:

[Root @ localhost network-scripts] # git log
Commit 1269758e5f5b2fa3e0ad1fe507abaf73b646a33d
Author: Pradeep <pradeep@linuxtechi.com> Date: Mon Oct 26 00:03:08 2015-0400
Changes on 26 Oct 2015
[Root @ localhost network-scripts] #

Note: Try to insert some useless characters in the ifcfg-enp0s3 File

4. Restore the network configuration file from the Git Database

[Root @ localhost network-scripts] # git reset -- hard 1269758e5f5b2fa3e0ad1fe507abaf73b646a33d
HEAD is now at 1269758 Changes on 26 Oct 2015
[Root @ localhost network-scripts] #

Use the same git id as above. The git id is different for your installation.

Verify that the files recovered from the git database are correct.

GitHub Tutorials:

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Git server setup and Client installation

Git Overview

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