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

Manage system dotfiles

Dotdrop doesn't allow to handle file owernership (at least not directly). Every file operation (create/copy file/directory, create symlinks, etc.) is executed with the rights of the user calling dotdrop.

Using dotdrop with sudo to manage unprivileged and privileged files 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 dotpaths) for handling these two uses cases:

For example:

• One config-user.yaml for the local/user dotfiles (with its dedicated dotpath, for example dotfiles-user)
• One config-root.yaml for the system/root dotfiles (with its dedicated dotpath, for example dotfiles-root)

config-user.yaml is used when managing the user's dotfiles:

## user config file is config-user.yaml
$ dotdrop import --cfg config-user.yaml <some-dotfile>
$ dotdrop install --cfg config-user.yaml
...

config-root.yaml is used when managing the system's dotfiles and is to be used with sudo or directly by the root user:

## root config file is config-root.yaml
$ sudo dotdrop import --cfg=config-root.yaml <some-dotfile>
$ sudo dotdrop install --cfg=config-root.yaml
...