NAME

       metche - reducing root bus factor

SYNOPSIS

              metche [-h VSERVER] report (stable|testing|unstable)-YYYYMMDDHHMM
              metche [-h VSERVER] list
              metche [-h VSERVER] stabilize testing-YYYYMMDDHHMM

DESCRIPTION

       metche  is a tool meant to ease collective system administration by monitoring changes in the system con‐
       figuration.

       metche basic usage is to monitor changes in a directory, usually /etc; optionally, metche can also  moni‐
       tor:

       • one or more user maintained changelog files,

       • the state of Debian packages and versions.

       metche  should  be installed with a cronjob that regularly runs to automatically save the system state as
       needed.  These states are saved in a way similar to the Debian development model:

       • unstable states are saved as soon as a change is detected.  They are kept until a new testing state ap‐
         pears.

       • testing states is created from the last unstable state that has not been changed after a  short  amount
         of time (by default, one hour).  Old unstable states are deleted afterwards.

       • stable  states are created from the last testing state, either manually, or after a long amount of time
         (by default, 3 days).  Old testing states are deleted afterwards.

       When a new testing state is saved, an email is sent to a configurable address, giving an overwiew of  the
       differences with the previous testing.  A notification is also sent when a new stable state is saved.

       metche’s configuration is read from /etc/metche.conf.  Various settings like changelog monitoring or time
       between system state switches are described there.

OPTIONS

       If  -h  VSERVER is specified, the VServer VSERVER is operated on instead of the host system.  This, along
       with the VSNAMES option, allows one to monitor several VServers running on the system.

       One of the following commands must be specified on the command line:

       report When run with the report command, metche displays a report against the specified saved  state,  or
              if unspecified, against the latest testing state.  This is useful when you have broken your system
              and want to know which changes have been made since a given, known working, system state.

       list   When run with the list command, metche displays a list of all the saved states.

       stabilize
              When run with the stabilize command, metche turns a “testing state” into a “stable state”.  By de‐
              fault, it will use the last “testing state”, but this can be overridden by giving a specific state
              as argument.

       cron   This  command should not be called manually, but used from a cronjob.  When called, it can perform
              various operations like: saving “unstable”, “testing” or “stable” states as needed and sending re‐
              ports and notification if configured to do so.  This command does not support the -h option.

FILES

       /etc/metche.conf contains metche configuration.

       When configured to monitor one changelog, CHANGELOG_FILE (default: /root/Changelog).

       When configured to monitor multiple changelogs, CHANGELOG_DIR/*/Changelog (default: /root/changelogs).

       System states are saved in BACKUP_DIR (default: /var/lib/metche).

SECURITY

       metche is able to use GnuPG to encrypt the email it sends, but does not by default; just enable  the  EN‐
       CRYPT_EMAIL  configuration  option, and make sure EMAIL_ADDRESS’ public key is in root’s keyring, trusted
       enough to be used blindly by metche.  If EMAIL_ADDRESS is an email alias or mailing-list’s  address,  you
       probably  want  to use the group option in /root/.gnupg/gpg.conf so that metche reports are encrypted for
       every person subscribed to this alias or mailing-list; for more information, see gpg(1).

       When DO_DETAILS is enabled and ENCRYPT_EMAIL is disabled, metche sends in clear text  email  the  changes
       made to the watched directory... either make sure that the EXCLUDES configuration variable prevents it to
       send  sensitive information, or triple check that secure connections will be used end-to-end on the email
       path.  If unsure, set EMAIL_ADDRESS  configuration  variable  to  a  local  mailbox.   Please  note  that
       EMAIL_ADDRESS is not used for VServers: a VServer’s report messages are sent to its root email address.

       metche  stores, in BACKUP_DIR (default: /var/lib/metche), various backups of WATCHED_DIR.  Make sure that
       this backup place is at least as secured as the source.

BUGS

       See metche’s ticket system (https://0xacab.org/metche/metche/issues) for known  bugs,  missing  features,
       and the development road-map.

AUTHORS

       metche and this manual page were written by the boum.org collective, and are now maintained by the metche
       developers collective <metche@lists.riseup.net>.

metche user manual                                June 5, 2011                                         METCHE(8)