confstore / News: Recent posts

Version 0.5.4 adds support for environmental variables, such as $HOME, in definition files thus greatly expanding what definition files can cover. Also, a bug in the wildcard system that wouldn't allow you to restore files that had been originally found using a wildcard entry has been fixed. When restoring, 'v' now shows both files so you can compare before you restore. All module options have been moved to cs.conf as well, meaning that you no longer have to edit the module scripts. Finally, I've added a few more configsets to the default locations.def plus a few that people submitted on SF and via the submission form on the confstore site.

Well its been a while since a new release or any news on confstore, so I thought I'd post to update people.

Firstly, the web version of confstore is unlikely to go ahead due to lack of interest. I'm currently looking at releasing 0.5.4 with a few fixes, updated definitions and maybe a few small new features.

Also, a windows version of confstore is in the pipeline! I make no promises on when this will be released but I'm working on it now and progress is going well.... read more

I've been considering the idea of a fully featured web interface version of confstore for a while now. Such an implementation would allow great flexibility and accessibility. Every backup would be logged automatically, users would be able to enter dates and see the configuration present at that time, backup data from the interface, view differences between various config files in seperate frames, have the added security of automatic md5 checksum verification and so much more. The possibilities are endless and I feel this is the way foward for confstore. The command line script version would continue to be developed aswell for those not interested in a web interface. However there are a lot of decisions to be made yet, for example, whether the web interface would also be in Perl or maybe PHP may lend a helping hand, and whether MySQL could be used to store various information about backups, maybe even actual configuration files. The reason I am posting about this is because I need confirmation that people would be interested in such a development. If there is little interest in this web interface then I will not waste my time coding it. If you have *any* interest, comments or suggestions regarding the possible web interface, please mail mastodon at fade@xaker.ru... read more

confstore v0.5.3 contains mainly bugfixes for v0.5.2 which had some problems with the encryption. Mainly, 0.5.2 would not run at all unless you had Crypt::CipherSaber, even if you werent using the encryption. This is fixed now and you only need Crypt::CipherSaber if you are going to use the encryption features. Checking for the module now occurs earlier in program execution to prevent unencrypted archives being left around if you try and encrypt something without Crypt::CipherSaber.

Head over to the confstore home page to read about Contributing definitions, and the new uber quick way to do it through an online quick submit box.

http://confstore.sourceforge.net

Version 0.5.2 adds support for encryption, using the CipherSaber encryption system. To encrypt archives just pass the -e and -p flags (-p is for specifying a password) You can then decrypt archives using the -de and -p flags. Any further information can be found in the README. The logging feature has also been extended quite a bit with a lot more information being logged including the definition file in use for scans, whether archives were mailed of FTPed anywhere, and details of restores. ... read more

Due to request (and of course, the authors initiative 8-D) confstore now has a logging feature. It can log every backup you make in one log file. Each entry in the log file includes: the exact date of the scan/backup, a list of all the files found/not found, the name of the resulting archive and the md5 checksum of the archive. This checksum is quite useful for ensuring the integrity of archives before restoring/using them in the future.

Im glad to announce that confstore will be featuring in a Japanese Linux Magazine (http://linux.ascii24.com/linux/linuxmag/) on APRIL 8TH. This is when the magazine is released in Japan, I should be getting a copy shortly after. I will scan the article in and upload it to the site for everyone to see as soon as I get it ;)
This is great news for confstore as it should provide plenty of publicity and interest.... read more

confstore v0.5 is a big rewrite of lots of the older confstore code. The processing of arguments is a lot more efficient (Getopt::Long is now used) People running confstore as a cron job need to check out the confstore --help before using 0.5 as many flags have changed and some flags now have fewer values. The menu mode has been abolished! It was pretty useless and just meant some annoying prompts sometimes got in your way. There is a new verbose option which can be controlled with the -v option or by setting the default verbose level in cs.conf. The confstore modules are now true modules and are loaded like any other Perl module :) Overall, 0.5 is one giant leap in confstores development, with a more mature look and more mature code. Go get it now!

confstore v0.4.3 implements the master archive feature. This is an optional feature that chronologically stores all configuration you have ever backed up in a master archive. This version also has improved documentation, a general code cleanup and some additional error checking.

v0.4.2 includes email support so you can now mail your archives to an email account for safe storage. 0.4.2 had to be released quickly to fix a stupid bug which made the "Upload to FTP?" prompt not respond to 'y'. Anyway, all is fixed now.

FTP support has been added so you can now upload archives to a FTP server after creation. A 'v' option has been added to the restore process so the user can view the file in question before restoring it. Certain prompts are now while loops which prevents NULL values being passed. New flag, -cf, has been added so users can specify a configset when restoring from the command line.

Version 0.4 at last includes a feature to restore configuration from an archive previously created with confstore. Also support for wildcards in definition files has been added.

Version 0.3 has many added features and fixes:

- Datestamping on archives has now been added (can be changed in cs.conf or by passing the -D flag)
- Support for specifying folders in definition files
- Definition files have been moved to def/
- New definition file specifically for OpenBSD has been added thanks to Richard Price (RichardPrice@wiredworld.co.uk)
- confstore now only checks the paths for the tools you are using so minimal machines wont have confstore failing on them
- Added support for a further comptype, none. This leaves the archive in .tar format with no further compression
- Archives extract to their archive name e.g. Backup-2003-09-02 will extract to a folder of the same name
- Full paths are now supported so you can pass paths with -o and when you are prompted to in menu mode
- confstore now checks permissions as well as existence of files, so it can tell between a file not being there, and being there but the user not being able to read it

(version 0.2)
A few features have been added and the command line parsing has been completely rewritten, with lots of code bummed out. confstore now has a configuration file itself ;) confstore now also supports multiple compressions. You can change the default compression to either gz or bz2 in cs.conf. Also a -c flag has been added to specify compression if you're running confstore from CLI. Also support for comments has been added to definition files and cs.conf. New file BUGS contains bugs fixed in the new version and any outstanding bugs. Also added a CHANGES file so you can see the progress of confstore.

confstore v0.1.1 has been released, well sub-released I should as theres no significant changes. The format of created archives is now a lot a nicer, with all files being extracted into confstore/ instead of multiple dirs (like etc, usr). Structure is still retained, but all within the folder confstore. Removed some of the 1 second waits which made confstore look like it was doing more than it really was. Also a general clear of some bits and bobs and a much improved README.
Finally I added a few more definitions to locations.def

The first version of confstore has now been released. All information needed can be found in the README file included in the release. Remember confstore is still alpha, but needless to say the script should run with no problems

Work on the perl version on confstore is currently underway. Expect a 0.1 release in the next few weeks