NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Start by running:

Once the merge is started, the various subcommands etcmerge show, etcmerge diff, etcmerge edit, etcmerge resolved, and so on display and edit state of the merge operation:

$ etcmerge show /etc/ssh/sshd_config
$ etcmerge diff -l -u /etc/ssh/sshd_config
$ etcmerge diff -n -u /etc/ssh/sshd_config
$ etcmerge edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config
$ etcmerge resolved /etc/ssh/sshd_config

When done, run either etcmerge commit to apply the changes outside the staging area, or etcmerge abort to give up on the merge and discard all changes.

Only one merge at a time can be in progress, unless you specify an alternate state directory with -S. etcmerge start will refuse to start a new merge until an ongoing one is aborted or committed.

COMMANDS

abort

Abort any pending merge operation and discard all changes in the staging area.

commit [-d]

Verify there are no more unresolved conflicts and commit the pending merge operation.

This moves all files from the staging area into their final places in the file system (relative to any rootdir specified in etcmerge start), and runs post-merge actions, including MAKEDEV(8) if /dev/MAKEDEV or /dev/MAKEDEV.local changed, newaliases(8) if /etc/mail/aliases changed, pwd_mkdb(8) if /etc/master.passwd changed, and services_mkdb(8) if /etc/services changed. (XXX The post-merge actions are not yet implemented.)

With the -d option, delete files that have been deleted upstream. (XXX This is not yet correctly implemented — it doesn't track local versus upstream deletions.)

conflict [path ...]

Discard any changes in the staging area to the given paths and recreate the three-way merge with conflict markers.

diff [-clmnpru] [path ...]

Show the diff between two versions of each file.

Either -l (local) or -n (new) must be specified to choose which versions. With -m, diff from whichever version is selected to the current file in the staging area. Without -m, diff from the old (upstream) version to whichever version is selected.

Options:

-c

show context diff

-l

use local file

-m

use merged file

-n

use new (upstream) file

-p

show function context in diff

-r

compare directories recursively

-u

show unified diff

edit [path ...]

Open an editor on each of the paths in the staging area. The editor is specified by the EDITOR environment variable.

If the files have unresolved conflicts, etcmerge will continue to consider them unresolved; if you have resolved them, use etcmerge resolved to mark them as resolved.

local [path ...]

Discard any merge and select the local version of each file. If the file had merge conflicts, this marks them as resolved like etcmerge resolved.

resolved path ...

Mark each path as resolved in the staging area after editing, e.g. with etcmerge edit.

Note: If the file still has merge conflict markers, then after etcmerge resolved they will remain in the file if committed with etcmerge commit.

run command [args ...]

Run a command in the staging area.

shell [args ...]

Start a shell in the staging area. The shell is specified by the SHELL environment variable.

show [-c] path

Show the current state of a file in the staging area.

With the -c option, ignore the current state and instead display the automatic merge of the file, with conflict markers.

start [-ACdns] [-c resolution] [-R rootdir] old.tgz new.tgz

Start a merge operation to incorporate changes from old.tgz to new.tgz into the files in the file system. Display a summary of an automatic merge outcome and then set up state for other etcmerge subcommands.

Options:

-A

Autocommit if the merge is clean. etcmerge will not create conflict markers, although it may yield nonsensical results if diff3(1) gets confused. This may be combined with the -C option to autocommit only if all upstream changes are to files unmodified locally.

-C

Abort if upstream made any changes to files that have local changes, even if they can be cleanly merged.

-c resolution

Automatically apply resolution to files with conflicts:

abort

Abort the merge in case of conflicts.

local

Take the local version of any file with conflicts.

upstream

Take the upstream version of any file with conflicts.

-d

If specified with -A, in the event of a successful merge, delete files that were deleted upstream. (XXX This is not yet correctly implemented — it doesn't track local versus upstream deletions.)

-n

Dry run. Just display a summary of the automatic merge outcome without actually starting a merge operation.

-R rootdir

Use rootdir instead of / to find and merge files.

-s

Silent. Suppress the summary of the automatic merge outcome.

status

Display a summary of the merge so far. For every file in old.tgz or new.tgz with either local or upstream changes, displays a line with a letter and the file name to indicate what state the file is in:

C

unresolved conflicting changes

L

local changes only

M

both changed but clean merge

R

resolved conflicts

U

upstream changes only

undo

Try to undo the immediately preceding etcmerge commit operation. All files in the file system outside the staging area listed in old.tgz or new.tgz are restored to the state they were in before etcmerge start.

There is only one level of undo. etcmerge undo is a convenience, not a substitute for backups — make sure to keep good backups.

(XXX This doesn't do anything about deletions.)

upstream [path ...]

Discard any merge and select the new upstream version of each file. If the file had merge conflicts, this marks them as resolved like etcmerge resolved.

ENVIRONMENT

EDITOR

Editor for etcmerge edit.

MTREE

mtree(1) command.

PAX

pax(1) command.

SHELL

Shell for etcmerge shell.

FILES

/var/etcmerge

State directory. Overridden by the -S option.

SEE ALSO

CAVEATS

etcmerge is not a substitute for a revision control system — it only assists with an individual merge operation. Consider keeping important configuration files under git(1) or hg(1) or rcs(5).

BUGS