MCM - Machine Configuration Manager

Welcome

Welcome to the home of Machine Configuration Manager (MCM)!

MCM manages the content of files and directories. Its tools are simple, fast and transparent. Its declarative language is simple and easy on the eye yet very powerful. One or more of the managed files is normally a script, which when executed lets MCM manage anything.

MCM is as clear and transparent and auditable as can be. The changes that MCM will perform are clear and transparent:

MCM displays what changes it will perform before enacting them
Changes can easily be performed on an alternate root, e.g. to have MCM create all the files in a temporary directory for review
An MCM configuration can be compiled into a single (and still very readable) file for easy review.

Additionally:

MCM's language is clear, concise and easy to read, making MCM configurations easy to review
Scripts generated by MCM can easily be modified to trace / debug exactly what they do

Usage

> mcm --help
Usage: mcm [OPTION..] [STARTINGPOINT..] [OPTION..]
Configure the specified files and directories
(both file/directory contents and permissions).
Changes to be made (if any) are displayed before they are enacted.

STARTINGPOINT	starting point (default = "Go.<lowercase_hostname>").
FIXTYPE		no|prompt|ifnew|yes|promptunlessonlyadditions

  -V            --version                      show version and exit
  -P PATH       --config-path=PATH             colon-separated list of directories holding configs (default = ".")
  -r DIRECTORY  --root=DIRECTORY               path to manage (default = "./build")
                --error-on-leftover-fragments  complain if there are fragments without corresponding files
  -f FIXTYPE    --fix=FIXTYPE                  whether to enact the changes (default="prompt")
  -d            --diff                         display differences (requires 'diff')
                --diff-command=COMMANDLINE     command to use when displaying differences (default="diff ORIGPATH -")
                --parse-only                   parse configuration only
  -c DIRECTORY  --compile-to=DIRECTORY         compile to a single MCM file
                --stdin                        read (initial) config from stdin
  -h            --help                         show this help and exit

More usage detail can be found in the mcm manpage. See also the manpages for the other mcm tools: mcmtags, mcm2html and commands2html.

Suggested Uses

MCM can be used in all sorts of places, for all sorts of things. For example:

personal configuration files
application configuration files
server configuration
data centres
factories
templating websites
missions to Mars and Venus
configuring robots

See the articles for more.

The more important the system, the more important it is that configuration control be used. But more than that, the written configurations need to be really easy to review, to read, to understand and to refactor. MCM has been designed for this.

Installing MCM

MCM is written for Debian and friends, though should install and work on most Linux, Windows and OS X systems.

There are several ways to install MCM:

using apt-get (or similar) to install:

Download and install the signing key:

   wget http://interfaces.org.uk/apt-key.pub
   apt-key add apt-key.pub

Add something like the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

   deb http://apt.interfaces.org.uk/debian jessie main
   deb-src http://apt.interfaces.org.uk/debian jessie main

   deb http://apt.interfaces.org.uk/raspbian jessie main
   deb-src http://apt.interfaces.org.uk/raspbian jessie main

There are some stretch packages too, so you can swap out "jessie" for "stretch" in the above.

Run:

   apt-get update
   apt-get install mcm

You will then have mcm and friends installed:

> dpkg -L mcm | sort | sed 's/\(buildinfo_\)[a-z0-9]\+/\1/g'
/.
/usr
/usr/bin
/usr/bin/commands2html
/usr/bin/mcm
/usr/bin/mcm2html
/usr/bin/mcmtags
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/mcm
/usr/share/doc/mcm/buildinfo_.gz
/usr/share/doc/mcm/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/mcm/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/mcm/copyright
/usr/share/doc/mcm/mcm.vim.gz
/usr/share/doc/mcm/README.txt
/usr/share/man
/usr/share/man/man1
/usr/share/man/man1/commands2html.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mcm.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mcm2html.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mcmtags.1.gz

Or downloading the .deb and .dsc, manually checking the checksums and pgp signature in the .dsc, installing the .deb with dpkg (browse (Debian) (Raspbian) )
Or building a new binary package using the source package:
1. Download and install the signing key (as above)
2. Add appropriate lines to /etc/apt/sources.list (as above)
3. Run commands like the following to install needed dependencies, compile MCM and then install the resulting .deb:
```
   apt-get build-dep mcm
   apt-get source --build mcm
   sudo dpkg -i mcm*.deb
```
Or using the current release source to build MCM:
1. Install dependencies via
```
apt-get build-dep mcm
```
  or by downloading and installing the Haskell Platform from https://www.haskell.org/downloads
2. Download the .dsc and .orig.tar.gz files from http://apt.interfaces.org.uk/debian/pool/main/m/mcm/
3. Make use of the .dsc file to verify the checksums and pgp signature
4. Unpack the .orig.tar.gz
5. Build mcm:
```
   cabal build
   cabal install
   
```

If you use vim, I heartily recommend using mcm.vim (distributed along with MCM) as its syntax highlighting gives instant feedback to prevent simple syntax errors. And it is nice to edit in colour too.

MCM - Machine Configuration Manager

Welcome

Usage

Suggested Uses

Installing MCM

Examples

Alternatives

Author