ta0kira's Linux Script Project / News: Recent posts

It's been over a year since my last release of 'extport'. I've since stopped using it myself, also. The purpose of creating this project was to see if I could successfully externalize the major portions of a Linux system so that the same setup could be used on multiple computers. I've found this to be bulky and infeasible, however I've been successfully using a set of scripts for a while which automatically manage encrypted volumes, which inspired me to revise this project as a Linux scripting project.... read more

This release of extport contains a few new safety features and several bug fixes to the mirroring process. Until 0.1.0, no other features will be added; only bug fixes until the system is stable enough to add new features. Thanks for your interest!
KEVIN

It was easier than I thought to get the changes made for this release. The major additions are; the ability to mirror individual files, the ability to mirror files with spaces in their names, and I cleaned up the mirroring process quite a bit to make it safer and more stable, and I gave it a much cleaner restoration process. Besides those changes, I've fixed a few bugs here and there and have made a few obscure improvements. As always, thanks for your interest!
KEVIN

Right now I am working on revising the way directory mirroring works. In 0.0.2 it was a very basic concept, however I've really taken a second look at it. Right now I've incorporated the ability to mirror individual files, and I am currently working on making it possible to mirror directories/files with spaces in their names. This is a lot harder than it sounds. This may require a change in format for the mirror map (right now I'm trying to get it to work with "\ ", but that isn't all that easy), but it will probably only be a matter of adding delimeters. I've also added a script to restore the mirror backups when the system is shut down so that when it starts up the next time there is always a file where it is looking for one. I've added more to the restoration map so that when the system is "unmirrored" then the excess symlinks to the mirrors are removed. I'll probably add ALL mirrored files with a reference to their map point in the mirror map so that the system can be completely restored without any traces of the mirror. Also, I've removed the hardlink-then-delete restoration method. That was the "best" way at the time to overwrite the symlinks, but I've made it so that the applicable symlinks are deleted and then the files are restored without overwriting anything.... read more

This was initially supposed to be a single bug fix to prevent an error message on startup (did not affect startup however), however while fixing it I found a few other areas of improvement. This release contains a few additional features to make the system safer, most notably when updating/restoring mirror directories. Thanks again for your interest!
KEVIN

This is the initial release of the extport system; a system used to make your /home and /usr/local directories portable. I thought of this idea less than a month ago, therefore it isn't a refined concept yet. Additional features in this version include; separate /usr/local trees for each kernel (or another rule of your choice), and mirroring configuration files so that they can be transported with you. This release has several safety features to ensure that your system starts up alright if your portable device is not present. This release is 100% bash shell scripts and text files, and only uses standard GNU tools. Thanks for your interest in my work!
KEVIN