Alpine local backups

Alpine itself only holds some few required packages when you boot a clean Alpine Linux.
But you probably want to do some personal adjustments (e.g installing a package or doing some configuration).
Because Alpine runs on RAM, and everything in RAM will get lost next time the box is rebooted or shut down, so you need to permanently save your modifications and adjustments to Alpine. This is where 'lbu' comes in handy!

First thing you need to know is this: As default 'lbu' only cares about modifications in /etc/ and it's subfolders!
So if you modify e.g. /etc/shorewall/rules then 'lbu' will notice that you have done modifications, and those will be permanently saved.
But if you modify the file /root/my_personal_notes it will not (by default) be saved next time you run 'lbu'.
We will get back to this later on!

Alpine has the following tools for permanently storing your modifications:

lbu
lbu_commit (Same as 'lbu commit')
lbu_exclude (Same as 'lbu exclude')
lbu_include (Same as 'lbu include')
lbu_status (Same as 'lbu status')
lbu_update (Same as 'lbu update')

Saving your changes

When you save your changes you will get a file that is named like 'myboxname.apkovl.tar.gz' ('myboxname' will be the same as the hostname).
This file (that contains your modifications) is called 'apkovl'.
You will need to save your 'apkovl' on some suitable media (floppy, usb, cf, other).

usage: lbu commit|ci [-nv] [<media>]

Options:
  -d	Remove old apk overlay files.
  -e	Protect configuration with a password.
  -n	Don't commit, just show what would have been commited.
  -p <password>	Give encryption password on the command-line
  -v	Verbose mode.

The following values for <media> is supported: floppy usb
If <media> is not specified, the environment variable LBU_MEDIA will be used.

Password protection will use aes-256-cbc encryption. Other ciphers can be
used by setting the DEFAULT_CIPHER or ENCRYPTION environment variables.
For possible ciphers, try: openssl -v

The password used to encrypt the file, can either be specified with the -p
option or using the PASSWORD environment variable.

The environment varialbes can also be set in /etc/lbu/lbu.conf

Exclude specific files/folders from the apkovl

Assume that you have some files located in /etc/ or one of it's subfolders that you do not want to permanently save.
It could be some logfile or statusfile that for some reason is elsewhere than in /var/log.
Such files/folders can be added to the /etc/lbu/exclude list by manually editing the file or using the following command:

usage: lbu exclude|ex|delete [-rv] <file> ...
       lbu exclude|ex|delete [-v] -l

Options:
  -l	List contents of exclude list.
  -r	Remove specified file(s) from exclude list instead of adding.
  -v	Verbose mode.

Note: This command only modifies some lbu-related configfiles. You will need to run 'lbu commit' to actually create/modify your apkovl.

Include special files/folders to the apkovl

Assume that you have some files that you want to permanently save, but they are located somewhere else than in /etc/.
It could be /root/.ssh/authorized_keys (used by 'sshd' to authenticate ssh-users).
Such files/folders can be added to the /etc/lbu/include list by manually editing the file or using the following command:

usage: lbu include|inc|add [-rv] <file> ...
       lbu include|inc|add [-v] -l

Options:
  -l	List contents of include list.
  -r	Remove specified file(s) from include list instead of adding.
  -v	Verbose mode.

Note: This command only modifies some lbu-related configfiles. You will need to run 'lbu commit' to actually create/modify your apkovl.

Check what will be added to your apkovl

Sometimes it would be handy to know what files will be permanently saved next time you run 'lbu commit'. Here you have your help:

usage: lbu list|ls

Create a apkovl elsewhere than on some specific media

usage: lbu package|pkg -v [<dirname>|<filename>]

Options:
  -v	Verbose mode.

If <dirname> is a directory, a package named <hostname>.apkovl.tar.gz will
be created in the specified directory.

If <filename> is specified, and is not a direcotry, a package with the
specified name willbe created.

If <dirname> nor <filename> is not specified, a package named
<hostname>.apkovl.tar.gz will be created in current work directory.

Check what files have been changed since last commit

usage: lbu status|st [-M <MASK>] [-av]

Options:
  -M	Use a different mask for comparing. (see sfic -h)
  -a	Compare all files, not just since last commit.
  -v	Also show include and exclude lists.