Arch Linux

9bit

Guest

How do you make your installation/config reproducible?

Hi,

new Arch user trying to move from Windows. How do you make your builds and configs reproducible? I know that there's always custom scripting, but I'm wondering if there's any tools that I might want to look into.

Cheers

jocheem67

Member

Registered: 2009-11-09

Posts: 250

Re: How do you make your installation/config reproducible?

Hi, if you mean that you wanna backup your system, then this is a good start:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_backup

I personally use rsync.

Last edited by jocheem67 (2025-05-05 06:04:43)

9bit

Guest

Re: How do you make your installation/config reproducible?

Backups are for later. That's not what I'm asking here.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,104

Re: How do you make your installation/config reproducible?

Then what are you asking? Backups are a way of making "configs reproducible". What's your definition if "backups" doesn't fit it? Assuming what you might mean look into stuff like etckeeper and/or setting up a git repo of your ~/.config or so or stow or so, though some tools can throw a fit if things are a symlink rather than the direct file or so, or ansible or salt or... if you really want to go all in on the concept switch to NixOS instead of Arch, there you're entire system state gets reproduced via declarative config files.

9bit

Guest

Re: How do you make your installation/config reproducible?

I'm asking about reproducibility—not backups. That was clear in my original post. Saying "then what are you asking?" after I've already explained it comes across as gaslighting. Just because it's not the answer someone expected doesn't mean the question is wrong or unclear.

I'm talking about being able to rebuild a system—packages and config—from scratch using tools or structured methods. If you have suggestions in that direction (like the mention of etckeeper, git for config files, stow, ansible, or salt), that's helpful. But implying I don't know the difference between a backup and reproducibility isn’t.

ua4000

Member

Registered: 2015-10-14

Posts: 551

Re: How do you make your installation/config reproducible?

or structured methods.

simple plain text file,
grouped into some headers and blocks,
starting with partition in parted, mkfs.ext4, ... chroot ... pacstrap

Re-installing e.g. a VPS is then copy + paste from this text file + sometimes a little thinking, what could be done better next time or what has changed in arch.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,104

Re: How do you make your installation/config reproducible?

It's not about implying you not knowing the difference but clarifying the exact end goal, I would've given a similar suggestion as jocheem but only from your response I leaned towards you actually wanting to use such maintenance tool.