lol i'm pretty sure it's not that 4U beast ;) or what looks like 4U it's a blade! it's mounted vertically in that chassis that size? they seem too small or am i too used to the monster Blade Center sized blades yup, 8 servers in 3U http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/3U/5038/SYS-5038ML-H8TRF.cfm they are indeed tiny *breathing intensifies* LOL damn my how times have changed I love servers that have a USB port on-board, internally, so you can put the OS on it, or recovery, or whatever... that's pretty common bryce i don't like it myself i didn't think of recovery, but it's a pita to change some kind of more secure slot or something woudl be nice though an sdcard slot? that pushes in like laptops actually having more than one could be good too i like the idea of pxe boot recovery best. makes it easier to udpate etc. mercutio: it didn't used to be common. :p And presumably, it's not going to be changed often. Installed once when built, and it can be rewritten/changed later as-needed (if used for recovery/reinstall), or if it's used for OS install then it's simply there. hp servers have for ages ok dl380 g5s have them trying to find a year for that though 2006 it seems g4 does too so does anyone know how the git /etc thing is meant to work? do you just do it like any other git repository, or is there a way to make it more secure? mercutio: you talking about git-annex? https://git-annex.branchable.com/ i dunno what i'm talking about i just thought i should try using git for /etc Then that's what you're talking abotu ;) but i haven't looked into it before. i found something called etckeeper so far do you use /etc on git? Me? I do not. I knew someone else that used git-annex does git-annex auto-commit? mercutio: No. See https://git-annex.branchable.com/walkthrough/ ok nice long wlakthrough i will have to check it out tomorrow i think heh, the core is in the first few examples, a quick skim is all that's needed ahh If you want to store the files too (full on git, not just git-annex), then it's a simple "cd /etc/ ; git init" (etc etc etc) i'm mostly thinking about how to get it to automaically store stuff and record changes even if people don't commit every change ie it's only updated from one place for one machine http://evilrouters.net/2011/02/18/using-etckeeper-with-git-on-ubuntu/ maybe git isn't the cleanest way? what are you using it on? the os, i mean? You could put the commit in cron, or put some elaborate hook in your .profile... But I don't see any other "automatic" way ubuntu s/u/ew/ ewbewntew well, there ya go. see link. haha jlgaddis: are you using it? yup ahh this looks a little better "Though I think we would all agree that it???s important, the unfortunate fact is that myself and other members of my ???team??? don???t necessarily document things as well as we always should. " that's so prevalent. As someone that's taking over the sysadmin role at a company with a surprisingly complex, and very interwoven with the product they sell, IT structure... Yeah, so true. "How the fuck does that database replicate to that server? WHO KNOWS!" once it's installed and initialized, you don't have to touch it. you *can* commit changes manually after you make them if you want (and i'd recommend it) but if you forget, they'll be auto-committed via a nightly cron job. and apt hooks into etckeeper also, to do pre- and post- "apt stuff" commits (There were some efforts to document the design aspects later on, but I still have to figure out all the little nuances and try and roll-out a duplicate environment)