Puppet users - Apr 2010 - Custom facts for a puppetmasterless environment

I see the instructions for creating custom facter recipes here:

http://projects.reductivelabs.com/projects/puppet/wiki/Adding_Facts

and in this thread, James Turnbull suggests that Facter might some day
support other languages besides ruby:

http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users/browse_thread/thread/8c127ae8898d3bcf/c5ca551b77c4eb67?lnk=gst&q=facter+perl#c5ca551b77c4eb67

He writes:
> Agreed.  That''d be a useful feature and if we''d probably
do it like
> Nagios plug-ins do - doesn''t matter what the language is as long
as they
> output data that the Facter API can parse into facts - Perl, Python, C,
> Rexx (*coughs*), etc.
Has such a feature been released in the latest versions of facter / puppet ?

I''m experimenting with puppet with no puppetmaster, but need to add
facts that my puppet_node_classifier usually provides. I assume using
facter is the way to go (I have not played with facter yet). Is there
an alternate solution for getting my own facts into a puppet node
without a puppetmaster?

Pete

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On Apr 9, 9:04 am, Pete Emerson <pemer...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I see the instructions for creating custom facter recipes here:
>
> http://projects.reductivelabs.com/projects/puppet/wiki/Adding_Facts
>
> and in this thread, James Turnbull suggests that Facter might some day
> support other languages besides ruby:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users/browse_thread/thread/8c12...
>
> He writes:
> > Agreed.  That''d be a useful feature and if we''d
probably do it like
> > Nagios plug-ins do - doesn''t matter what the language is as
long as they
> > output data that the Facter API can parse into facts - Perl, Python,
C,
> > Rexx (*coughs*), etc.
>
> Has such a feature been released in the latest versions of facter / puppet
?
>
> I''m experimenting with puppet with no puppetmaster, but need to
add
> facts that my puppet_node_classifier usually provides. I assume using
> facter is the way to go (I have not played with facter yet). Is there
> an alternate solution for getting my own facts into a puppet node
> without a puppetmaster?
>
> Pete
Okay, I think I got it. Pretty exciting, especially given I don''t know
ruby at all. Comments appreciated, for sure, as I''m not positive that
I might be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

I''ve made a fact that loads results from a perl script.

1) The sample perl script gives output just like a puppet node
classifier would using YAML
2) The ruby parses the output of the perl script and generates facts.

################### /usr/local/bin/facter.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

print <<END
---
parameters:
  dongle: "special_dongle_value"
END

################### /var/lib/puppet/lib/facter/classifier.rb

require "yaml"

yaml_obj = YAML::load(%x{/usr/local/bin/facter.pl})
yaml_obj[''parameters''].each { |key, value|
        Facter.add(key) do
                setcode do
                        value
                end
        end
}

#################### Manual run

# export FACTERLIB=/var/lib/puppet/lib/facter ; facter | grep dongle
dongle => special_dongle_value

#################### /etc/puppet/puppet.conf additions
pluginsync = true
factpath = $vardir/lib/facter


#################### test.pp

exec { "dongle":
        command	=> "/bin/echo ''$dongle'' >
/tmp/dongle.txt"
}

###################### Puppet run

# puppet -v test.pp
info: Loading facts in classifier
info: Applying configuration version ''1270834249''
notice: //Exec[dongle]/returns: executed successfully
# cat /tmp/dongle.txt
special_dongle_value

##############################################

Pete

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I also like to embed facts with bash logic using bash startup files in
/etc/profile.d/puppet.sh

The puppet labs FAQ has a write up on it.
Can I access environmental variables with Facter?

Not directly no but Facter has a special types of facts that can be set from
environment variables. Any environment variable with a prefix of
FACTER<http://puppetlabs.com/projects/facter> will
be taken by Facter and converted into a fact, for example:

$ FACTER_FOO="bar"
$ export FACTER_FOO
$ facter | grep ''foo''
  foo => bar

The value of the FACTER_FOO environmental variable would now be available in
your Puppet manifests as $foo with a value of ‘bar’.
-Tom

Thomas A. McGonagle
tom@dataero.com
Google Voice: 617-229-5185



On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Pete Emerson <pemerson@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 9, 9:04 am, Pete Emerson <pemer...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I see the instructions for creating custom facter recipes here:
> >
> > http://projects.reductivelabs.com/projects/puppet/wiki/Adding_Facts
> >
> > and in this thread, James Turnbull suggests that Facter might some day
> > support other languages besides ruby:
> >
> >
http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users/browse_thread/thread/8c12...
> >
> > He writes:
> > > Agreed.  That''d be a useful feature and if we''d
probably do it like
> > > Nagios plug-ins do - doesn''t matter what the language is
as long as
> they
> > > output data that the Facter API can parse into facts - Perl,
Python, C,
> > > Rexx (*coughs*), etc.
> >
> > Has such a feature been released in the latest versions of facter /
> puppet ?
> >
> > I''m experimenting with puppet with no puppetmaster, but need
to add
> > facts that my puppet_node_classifier usually provides. I assume using
> > facter is the way to go (I have not played with facter yet). Is there
> > an alternate solution for getting my own facts into a puppet node
> > without a puppetmaster?
> >
> > Pete
>
> Okay, I think I got it. Pretty exciting, especially given I don''t
know
> ruby at all. Comments appreciated, for sure, as I''m not positive
that
> I might be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
>
> I''ve made a fact that loads results from a perl script.
>
> 1) The sample perl script gives output just like a puppet node
> classifier would using YAML
> 2) The ruby parses the output of the perl script and generates facts.
>
> ################### /usr/local/bin/facter.pl
> #!/usr/bin/perl -w
>
> print <<END
> ---
> parameters:
>  dongle: "special_dongle_value"
> END
>
> ################### /var/lib/puppet/lib/facter/classifier.rb
>
> require "yaml"
>
> yaml_obj = YAML::load(%x{/usr/local/bin/facter.pl})
> yaml_obj[''parameters''].each { |key, value|
>        Facter.add(key) do
>                setcode do
>                        value
>                end
>        end
> }
>
> #################### Manual run
>
> # export FACTERLIB=/var/lib/puppet/lib/facter ; facter | grep dongle
> dongle => special_dongle_value
>
> #################### /etc/puppet/puppet.conf additions
> pluginsync = true
> factpath = $vardir/lib/facter
>
>
> #################### test.pp
>
> exec { "dongle":
>        command => "/bin/echo ''$dongle'' >
/tmp/dongle.txt"
> }
>
> ###################### Puppet run
>
> # puppet -v test.pp
> info: Loading facts in classifier
> info: Applying configuration version ''1270834249''
> notice: //Exec[dongle]/returns: executed successfully
> # cat /tmp/dongle.txt
> special_dongle_value
>
> ##############################################
>
> Pete
>
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>
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