Every now and then I see someone asking about an alternative to using Dropbox to manage their dot files in their home directory.

A fair while ago (at least 2 years) I started using Subversion to do this. At some point I wrote a script that can be put in my user’s cron file to automate updates and commits.

I figured I would finally publish it so that others can use or improve (or simply abuse) it.

I also decided to finally set up a github account, so it can be found there there.

To use it I put lines like this in “crontab -e”:

1
2

# pidgin - 1 day of lag ok
49 */2 * * * . /home/foo/.ssh/agent; /home/foo/path/to/subversion_auto_sync --max-lag=$((24*60*60)) /home/foo/.purple

Which every 2 hours runs subversion_auto_sync on my home directory with my ssh-agent environment loaded to allow automated (but secure) key based authentication. This example will not run an update for up to 24 hours since the last update, but it will always commit if local modifications have occurred. This provides gradual synchronisation of my Pidgin logs between all Desktops/Laptops I use.

I’ve got the vast bulk of my important home directory files either in Subversion using something similar to what’s above, or being synchronised with Unison.