Best practice to backup /etc config files

Question

I want to setup froxlor on not fresh install remote server (Ubuntu 10.04.2).

I take care of admin the server since two month. Before I start, the previous guy installed and config some services and files. I don't know what he exactly does, I can only view what he installed (by the history) but not what he edit. I want to install the Server-Management-Panel 'Froxlor' to administrate the whole stuff with it and not doing it manually by ssh. My cousin (he rent the server) should also be able to config some stuff with the browser.

These services already installed and configured and used

• apache 2 + php 5 + mysql 5.1
• proftp 1.3
• postfix 2.7 + courier 0.62

The tutorials I found, are based on fresh install system. I already installed froxlor, but for using it I have to execute some scripts and change/overwrite the config files of the services. But if I do it, the current configurations will be lost.

What's the best practice to backup the configs as simple as possible (with less effort and problems) and configure froxlor and then merge the backuped files.

Which data / config files I have to backup?

Solution

Install etckeeper. On Ubuntu, that's the etckeeper package . Choose your favorite version control system (amongst Bazaar, Darcs, Git and Mercury). Run etckeeper init.

Now, every time you modify a configuration file, run sudo bzr commit from /etc (or sudo git commit or whatever). Also, every time you install, upgrade or remove a package, changes in /etc will be automatically committed to version control (with a generic message, so it's best to commit manually with a meaningful message). To revert to an earlier version, use bzr revert (or …).