Puppet users - Dec 2008 - changing "name" of resource without changing the title

My initial base config contained a "vim" package.  After installing a
few servers I realized what I really wanted was a "vim-nox" package.

Feeling clever, I changed this:

package {"vim":
      ensure => installed,
}

To this:

package {"vim":
     name => "vim-nox",
     ensure => installed,
}

That way I could still refer to the package by the generic term "vim"
but I would get the bloated version.  Unfortunately, none of the
client nodes are picking up the change.  They seem to think that since
the resource is still called "vim" they don''t have to
re-install it.

Is there anything I can do to get this change to propagate?  Of course
if I go to each client and remove the "vim" package it gets replaced
at the next run with "vim-nox", but I''m hoping for something
a bit
more elegant.  And, perhaps, an explanation enumerating the ways in
which my course of action was clueless.

Thanks...

-Ben

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Ben Beuchler wrote:
> My initial base config contained a "vim" package.  After
installing a
> few servers I realized what I really wanted was a "vim-nox"
package.
> 
> Feeling clever, I changed this:
> 
> package {"vim":
>       ensure => installed,
> }
> 
> To this:
> 
> package {"vim":
>      name => "vim-nox",
>      ensure => installed,
> }
> 
> That way I could still refer to the package by the generic term
"vim"
> but I would get the bloated version.  Unfortunately, none of the
> client nodes are picking up the change.  They seem to think that since
> the resource is still called "vim" they don''t have to
re-install it.
> 
> Is there anything I can do to get this change to propagate?  Of course
> if I go to each client and remove the "vim" package it gets
replaced
> at the next run with "vim-nox", but I''m hoping for
something a bit
> more elegant.  And, perhaps, an explanation enumerating the ways in
> which my course of action was clueless.
The fact that a run after manually removing the vim package installs vim-nox
suggests to me that puppet itself is actually picking up on the change fine.
(You could run puppetd with --debug to check this.)

My first thought would be that your vim package is set up to advertise itself
as providing an acceptable substitute for the vim-nox package.  Thus, when
puppet asks your package manager "do you have the vim-nox package
installed?"
it says "sure!"  You don''t say which package manager
you''re using, so this is
purely speculation, but it would be simple enough to create a manifest to test
this out.  Try something like this:

package { "vim-purge":
  name => "vim",
  ensure => absent
}
package { "vim":
  name => "vim-nox",
  ensure => installed,
  require => Package["vim-purge"]
}

The require should make sure that it uninstalls the vim package before
attempting to install the vim-nox package.

As an alternative, you could make a tiny class that contains just those two
packages, and then refer to the vim class instead.  That way you''d
avoid the
potentially confusing title vs name differences.

-- 
Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu  |  For every problem, there is a solution that
WPI Senior Network Engineer   |  is simple, elegant, and wrong. - HL Mencken
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> My first thought would be that your vim package is set up to advertise
itself
> as providing an acceptable substitute for the vim-nox package.  Thus, when
> puppet asks your package manager "do you have the vim-nox package
installed?"
> it says "sure!"
It doesn''t look like it.  Perusing the code for the provider, it looks
like it uses this command to test for the presence of "vim-nox":

# /usr/bin/dpkg-query -W --showformat ''${Status} ${Package}
${Version}\n'' vim-nox
purge ok not-installed vim-nox
# /usr/bin/dpkg-query -W --showformat ''${Status} ${Package}
${Version}\n'' vim
install ok installed vim 1:7.1-138+1ubuntu3

As you can see, it admits it is not installed.

Despite this, running "puppetd --test --debug" shows prefetching the
package list and then no attempt to install vim-nox.  No mention
of
> You don''t say which package manager you''re using, so this
is purely speculation,
> but it would be simple enough to create a manifest to test this out.
I''m using the "aptitude" provider.
> package { "vim-purge":
>  name => "vim",
>  ensure => absent
> }
> package { "vim":
>  name => "vim-nox",
>  ensure => installed,
>  require => Package["vim-purge"]
> }
Excellent suggestion.  That, of course, fixed the problem.

It''s still not clear to me why this happened, which is going to annoy
me for a bit.

Thanks!

-Ben

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On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 07:44:46PM -0600, Ben Beuchler wrote:
[...]
> 
> > package { "vim-purge":
> >  name => "vim",
> >  ensure => absent
> > }
> > package { "vim":
> >  name => "vim-nox",
> >  ensure => installed,
> >  require => Package["vim-purge"]
> > }
> 
> Excellent suggestion.  That, of course, fixed the problem.
That is not ideal, though, as it leaves you with a window of not having
any vim installed. It would be better if puppet just decided to install
vim-nox, at which point aptitude would remove vim if needed, before
configuring vim-nox.

-- 
Marcin Owsiany <marcin@owsiany.pl>              http://marcin.owsiany.pl/
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"Every program in development at MIT expands until it can read mail."
                                                              -- Unknown

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