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From: =?UTF-8?b?TWFydGluIEtqw6ZyIErDuHJnZW5zZW4=?= <me@lagy.org>
To: Christian Kujau <lists@nerdbynature.de>
Subject: Re: Multiple machine management
Date: Mon, 04 May 2026 13:11:02 +0200
Cc: ~alpine/users@lists.alpinelinux.org
Feedback-Id: 42.3484365.3158665:MJ
In-Reply-To: <f7e636c5-e963-17c5-e1eb-dc9e76174ed7@nerdbynature.de>
	(Christian
	Kujau's message of "Sun, 3 May 2026 14:34:30 +0200 (CEST)")
References: <87a4ukrjzf.fsf@lagy.org>
	<f7e636c5-e963-17c5-e1eb-dc9e76174ed7@nerdbynature.de>
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On 05/03/26 14:34 PM, Christian Kujau wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Apr 2026, Martin Kj=C3=A6r J=C3=B8rgensen wrote:
>> - updates/patches
>> - upgrades
>> - automatically installing desired packages
>
> There's apk-autoupdate tool:
>
>   https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_Package_Keeper#Autoupdate_tool=
_for_apk
>
> Never used it though, I'm using a cron job with "apk upgrade" and this=20
> works quite well.
>

Thanks for the hint. I'll look into it.

>> - automatically removing obsolete or unneeded packages
>
> Automatic package removals...I'd be careful with that :-) Can you give an=
=20
> example on why you want to do that? Like, "remove the 10 least used=20
> packages" or something? Do other distributions have something like this?
>

I do not know if other distributions have such a tool. I thought about keep=
ing
one or more text files, like the world file, that lists desired packages fo=
r
groups of machines. So machine checks if its in a particular group and
install/removes packages accordingly.

A simple use case; imagine you have a desktop and a laptop. You wish to mak=
e
sure needed packages are installed on both systems but also removes package=
s
not needed or wanted anymore. You also want to maintain lists of packages o=
nly
wanted on desktop and another for the laptop. For instance, the desktop mig=
ht
not need wireless tools and firmware, but the laptop does.

>> - config (/etc files)
>
> What about this, what do you intend to manage here?

I intent to keep a repository or file system with /etc files so that machin=
es
can easily share/sync their /etc. I realize, most files in /etc would not b=
e
synced between machines, but a few might. Like setting files for daemons
needed on all systems, bash/profile files, and similar.

>
> C.
> --=20
> BOFH excuse #188:
>
> ..disk or the processor is on fire.

--=20
/Martin
=