This package just contains some functions and tools that I have found useful
over the years in managing unix boxes. It used to also contain machine-specific
configuration information. That can be found in the historic version of this
package under mchange-development-unified/bk_reposirories. But it is mostly
obsolete.

====

The most useful bit of functionality here is the pkgappend bash function, and
the various functions it loads. To "install", add the following to your
.bashrc file or to /etc/bashrc, where ${MCHANGE_ADMIN_ROOT} stands for the
directory where you have found this file.

You will need to define a directory called PKGBASE as well. It will be
the "prefix" directory into which you install software you want to hand-
manage in a modular way, rather than having files sprawled across /usr/local

Typically, I define ${PKGBASE}/PKGDIST and ${PKGBASE}/PKGMETA directories,
and actually install software into volume specific directories under PKGDIST,
while segregating config information that I may wish to backup or reuse across
versions into PKGMETA (via parallel directories and symlinks). Note that
PKGMETA and PKGDIST are literal directory names, not all caps shell variables
like PKGDIST. In other words, there might be a hierarchy like:

   ${PKGBASE}/PKGDIST/foosoft-1.1
   ${PKGBASE}/foosoft --> ${PKGBASE}/PKGDIST/foosoft-1.1
   ${PKGBASE}/PKGMETA/foosoft-1.1/foo.config
   ${PKGBASE}/PKGDIST/foosoft-1.1/foo.config -->  ${PKGBASE}/PKGMETA/foosoft-1.1/foo.config

The arrows represent symlinks. Anyway, in .bashrc, then, define

    export PKGBASE=<some absolute directory path>
    export BASH_FUNCTIONS_BASE=${MCHANGE_ADMIN_ROOT}/common/bash/functions
    . ${BASH_FUNCTIONS_BASE}/pkg/pkgappend.sh

That's it!

====

Steve Waldman <swaldman@mchange.com>
04-September-2009