The useless human memory system...

[William Fletcher]

Hi,

During my teenage years I probably destroyed a few million brain cells
from alcohol abuse and now I was wondering if anyone had a nice checklisting 
system to help me remember what I do on the few servers I'm incharge of... 

At the moment I use a normal file on every server which I modify with vi.
It all sits in the file with sections and looks something like this...

+ Comment.
% Command.
- Normal config file. (Backup).
^ File/Directory to be backed up.
` Heavy backup, like mailboxes, websites, etc.
* Option to be compiled into a port.
= File already exists and is backed up, but a modification is required for this section.
< Dependency package\port required to install package.
# Section.
! End of section.
@ Package\Port\Software installed.
_ Yafic file integrity rule.
$ Things to ask ISP\Customer\Co-worker.

And I use it like... 

# Manually installed software. 
  @ postfixadmin.
    = /etc/fstab
    % chroot /usr/local/jails/webserver /usr/local/sbin/htpasswd -c /usr/local/www/mailadmin.server.co.za/admin/.htpasswd admin
    % mkdir -p /usr/local/jails/webserver/usr/local/virtual
    % chown 5000:5000 /usr/local/jails/webserver/usr/local/virtual
    = /usr/local/jails/webserver/usr/local/etc/apache2/httpd.conf
    - /usr/local/www/mailadmin.server.co.za/config.inc.php
    - /usr/local/www/mailadmin.server.co.za/delete.php
    - /usr/local/www/mailadmin.server.co.za/admin/delete.php
    - /usr/local/jails/webserver/root/bin/mbdelete.sh
    = /usr/local/jails/webserver/usr/local/etc/sudoers
!

Then, I can use sed\grep and create a script of all files modified, I can use
this to create tar archives for each server incase something should go so wrong
and I cannot `restore` off a tape. I also know exactly what I did on what
server, what to add so as not to disturb file integrity, and so forth.

I was just wondering if I'm crazy or if there is an even better method of keeping
track of what is going on, keeping all the little gears oiled and running smoothly
on my servers... 

-- 
William Alexander Fletcher

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. 
					-- Arthur C. Clarke