• dotlink
  • Concept
  • Adding configuration files for multiple host

dotlink

There are countless ways of managing your dotfiles.. this is also one. After trying several approaches and switching between different setups, this method met finally all of my requirements:

• As simple as possible
• Multiple machines are managed in one repository
• Identical configurations for one program on several machines only need to be adjusted in one place
• Different configurations for one program on several machines are no problem
• Set everything up with one command
• Updating configurations shall require nothing more than git pull

This is a reference repository which contains a setup script and example dotfiles for two machines called host1 and host2.

Warning: If you want to try this make a backup of your dotfiles! The setup script doesn't overwrite existing files but you never know.

Concept

The concept is based on symlinks and two directories called common and machines and a bash script called setup.

The machines directory contains subdirectories for all machines on which dotfiles are managed. They need to match the hostname of the machine (in this repository host1 and host2) and mimic the corresponding $HOME directories.

The common directory contains configs which are present on multiple machines. It doesn't follow any specific structure, you can choose what suits your setup. Subdirectories with program names, followed by the configuration files (in this repository only mpv) make probably the most sense but its up to you. The common directory should never contain symlinks.

Symlinks from the machines directory to the common directory make the configs available on multiple machines and they can be adjusted in one place (see mpv in this repository).

Here is the tree output from this repository:

  dotlink/
  ├── common
  │   └── mpv
  │       ├── input.conf
  │       └── mpv.conf
  ├── machines
  │   ├── host1
  │   │   ├── .config
  │   │   │   └── mpv -> ../../../common/mpv/
  │   │   └── .offlineimaprc
  │   └── host2
  │       └── .config
  │           ├── beets
  │           │   └── config.yaml
  │           └── mpv -> ../../../common/mpv/
  └── setup

The mpv configuration is shared between hosts, host1 has an OfflineIMAP configuration in his home directory and host2 has a beets configuration in his .config directory.

When calling the setup script, all files from the directory which matches the current hostname are linked to their destination in the $HOME directory. Calling the script is only neccessary when new files are added. If you updated a configuration somewhere else just call git pull and thats it.

Adding configuration files for multiple host

It is important that the links from the machines directory to the common directory are relative. Follow these steps to add new configurations for multiple machines:

1. Add the files to the common directory
2. Execute ln -rs common/<config_or_directory> machines/<hostname>/<path_in_home> for every machine on which the files should be present
3. Call the setup script on every modified machine