You can use /etc/etcupdate.conf to skip files like this:
IGNOREFILES="/etc/group /etc/master.passwd /etc/nsswitch.conf /etc/rc.conf /etc/shells /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/sysctl.conf /etc/ttys /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf"
Another thing I usually do on systems without ZFS or Btrfs is to version control /etc using git like this:
cd /etc
sudo git init .
sudo chmod 700 .git
sudo git add .
sudo git commit -m init
This way you can track any changes to your configuration with git diff
. You can then run git add
& git commit -m $message
when you're happy with the changes and then track history with git log -p
and so on.