Using Debian's devscripts dch for sysadmin logs

dannf had a good idea that we've been using to keep sysadmin machines changelogs. We use the dch tool from the Debian devscripts package.

Here's an example of what the logs look like:

   dopey (2) UNRELEASED; urgency=low

     * installed package foo
     * edited foo's config file to point at server bar
     * added users alice and bob

    -- J. Random Hacker   Mon, 10 Sep 2007 19:57:30 -0600

   dopey (1) UNRELEASED; urgency=low

     * Installed Debian etch
     * configured external and internal networks
     * setup firewall
     * configured ssh to only allow ssh keys and disallow root

    -- B. Operator   Mon, 10 Sep 2007 19:47:12 -0600

setup

install the devscripts package
In /root create a debian directory
chgrp adm debian;chmod 2775 debian
dch --create and change the package name to the machine hostname and the version to 1.
Add the users that you want to be able to edit the changelog to the adm group (this also gives them other adm rights, like the ability to read logs)

usage

Each user should set DEBEMAIL or EMAIL in their shell initialization. For example:

   export EMAIL='J. Random Hacker <jr@hax0r.com>"

UPDATE: post-etch dch looks for debian/control but you can tell it not to do that with the --no-auto-nmu flag (or by setting DEBCHANGE_AUTO_NMU=no)

Adding a new entry:

   dch -c /root/debian/changelog --no-auto-nmu -i

Editing the exiting top entry:

   dch -c /root/debian/changelog --no-auto-nmu

Notes:

You can create aliases for the above. For example I added the following to my .bash_aliases file

alias scl='dch -c /root/debian/changelog --no-auto-nmu -i'
alias scle='dch -c /root/debian/changelog --no-auto-nmu'

You don't have to specific the changelog location if you are in the /root dir when you run dch.
You can use other dch options too (but I don't know if any of the other ones are useful for this purpose)

Matt Taggart <taggart@debian.org>
Updated: February 10, 2009