How To Install etckeeper on Ubuntu 22.04

In this tutorial we learn how to install etckeeper on Ubuntu 22.04. etckeeper is store /etc in git, mercurial, brz or darcs

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install etckeeper on Ubuntu 22.04.

What is etckeeper

etckeeper is:

The etckeeper program is a tool to let /etc be stored in a git, mercurial, brz or darcs repository. It hooks into APT to automatically commit changes made to /etc during package upgrades. It tracks file metadata that version control systems do not normally support, but that is important for /etc, such as the permissions of /etc/shadow. It’s quite modular and configurable, while also being simple to use if you understand the basics of working with version control.

There are three methods to install etckeeper on Ubuntu 22.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install etckeeper Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install etckeeper using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install etckeeper

Install etckeeper Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install etckeeper using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install etckeeper

Install etckeeper Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install etckeeper using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install etckeeper

How To Uninstall etckeeper on Ubuntu 22.04

To uninstall only the etckeeper package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove etckeeper

Uninstall etckeeper And Its Dependencies

To uninstall etckeeper and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 22.04, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove etckeeper

Remove etckeeper Configurations and Data

To remove etckeeper configuration and data from Ubuntu 22.04 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge etckeeper

Remove etckeeper configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove etckeeper configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge etckeeper

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install etckeeper package on Ubuntu 22.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.