[rancid] Can I search (a la grep) a devices change history?

[heasley]

Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 04:33:22PM +0000, on at LEFerguson.com:
> Some searching seems to yield the answer "no" but....
> 
> I am using CVS and ViewVC.
> 
> Is there a way to search the change history of a device using grep (or something similar).
> 
> I want to pull out one defined line (notably flash free space) over time, and have about 400 entries for each of three devices that are of interest.   It's in there, it's easily identified, but apparently the saved configs are not readily accessible as text.

the data is all just text, though not really in a convenient format.

something like:
cat ~rancid/<group>/configs
fgrep -r "<some text to match>" `cat CVS/Root`/`cat CVS/Respository

format as you wish from there.

It would be more complicated for svn or git, but this is a quick/dirty way
for CVS.