dotdrop/docs/howto/global-config-files.md

Manage system dotfiles

Dotdrop doesn't allow to handle file rights and permissions (at least not directly). Every operations (mkdir, cp, mv, ln, file creation) are executed with the rights of the user calling dotdrop. The rights of the stored dotfile are mirrored on the deployed dotfile (chmod like). It works well for local/user dotfiles but doesn't allow to manage global/system config files (/etc or /var for example) directly.

Using dotdrop with sudo to handle local and global dotfiles in the same session is a bad idea as the resulting files will all have messed up owners.

It is therefore recommended to have two different config files (and thus two different dotpath) for handling these two uses cases:

• one config.yaml for the local/user dotfiles (with its dedicated dotpath)
• another config file for the global/system dotfiles (with its dedicated dotpath)

The default config file (config.yaml) is used when installing the user dotfiles as usual

# default config file is config.yaml
$ ./dotdrop.sh import <some-dotfile>
$ ./dotdrop.sh install
...

A different config file (for example global-config.yaml and its associated dotpath) is used when installing/managing global dotfiles and is to be used with sudo or directly by the root user

# specifying explicitly the config file with the --cfg switch
$ sudo ./dotdrop.sh import --cfg=global-config.yaml <some-dotfile>
$ sudo ./dotdrop.sh install --cfg=global-config.yaml
...