NOTE This is a copy of a closed question from Stack Overflow, and a constructive version, I feel, of a similar question in Server Fault.
Often I need to edit many configuration files under /etc
, however, I don't want these changes to get lost when I'll perform my next system upgrade.
Right now, I've housed all configuration files as well as some of my maintenance scripts in /opt/admin
, and symlinked /etc
targets there, but that doesn't seem right according to standards I've seen. Another option I thought of, is housing these in /usr/local
. The aforementioned document says it is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally. That's the closest I've got. However, also /usr/local
gets clobbered when you install new non-packaged software.
Is there a standard/largely followed best-practice as to how to maintain these? Since this is not a discussion page, answers should be definite and with an article or two to support them.
NOTE I have included my own answer I've found to be most useful up to now. I did re-open this here so it can be discussed and for more answers to come in.