Keeping personal config files synchronised across multiple Ubuntu/SLES servers

Question

I've recently started at a new job with a heterogenous server environment, i.e. about a 50/50 split between Windows and Linux (mostly Ubuntu, but a handful are SLES). My previous experience with *nix was about 5 years ago, so I've taken a little while to get back on my feet and now that I have, I find that I'm starting to customise my environment quite a bit, i.e. tweaking my ~/.vimrc, ~/.bash_profile and others.

I'm looking for a reliable way to keep my customised config files synchronised across multiple servers with minimal manual maintenance.

I've found one solution, use Dropbox, which seems to be a pretty cool idea. It's low maintenance and since the files in question are tiny, it won't be a huge bandwidth hog either.

Are there any alternate suggestions out there?

Answer 1

Put the files under source control. Then you have easy history of your changes.

Answer 2

I personally keep my interesting dotfiles accessable via the web at my personal wiki. Then if I make an interesting change, I change the files at the wiki and can grab the update from other systems as required.

For files with escape characters, I have a couple of wget lines that let me grab the files quickly, all ready for copy-and-paste.

It isn't automatic, but it does let me set up a new system fairly quickly with the environment I want.

Answer 3

Keep an eye on Ubuntu One. The community will most probably create clients for other distros than Ubuntu as well as for Windows.