Puppet users - Mar 2007 - Basic help with imports and includes

Do any of you good people have a moment to help me out with my basic
Puppet language skills, I''m a little new around here and getting an
error
I don''t yet understand.

I have an RHEL4 Puppetmaster happily controlling the permissions of
/etc/sudoers on an RHEL5 and SolarisX86 client.

My actual environment consists of several systems in several locations. 
All systems need the same amount of configuration but much of the
configuration information is location specific, (DNS servers, LDAP, etc,
etc).   I would like to separate the classes that perform the
configuration from the config files that contain the data as they will be
administered by different groups of people.

The client systems know where they are, (/etc/location contains the
location code which in this test case is "home").  I have created a
custom
fact, (code below), to read this file and some very simple manifests, but
I am getting the following error on the clients


"Could not retrieve configuration: Cannot reassign variable perms at
/etc/puppet/manifests/location/work.pp:2"


Could someone put me on the right road.

# /etc/puppet/manifests/site.pp
import "location/*.pp"
include $location
file { "/etc/sudoers":
        owner => root, group => root, mode => $perms
}

# /etc/puppet/manifests/location/home.pp
$perms = 666

# /etc/puppet/manifests/location/work.pp
$perms = 644

#/var/lib/puppet/facts/location.rb

Facter.add("location") do
        setcode do
                %x{cat /etc/location}.chomp
        end
end



Rgds

Scott

On Mar 26, 2007, at 2:09 PM, Scott White wrote:
>
> Do any of you good people have a moment to help me out with my basic
> Puppet language skills, I''m a little new around here and getting
an
> error
> I don''t yet understand.
>
> I have an RHEL4 Puppetmaster happily controlling the permissions of
> /etc/sudoers on an RHEL5 and SolarisX86 client.
>
> My actual environment consists of several systems in several  
> locations.
> All systems need the same amount of configuration but much of the
> configuration information is location specific, (DNS servers, LDAP,  
> etc,
> etc).   I would like to separate the classes that perform the
> configuration from the config files that contain the data as they  
> will be
> administered by different groups of people.
Okay, that should be pretty easy.
> The client systems know where they are, (/etc/location contains the
> location code which in this test case is "home").  I have created
a
> custom
> fact, (code below), to read this file and some very simple  
> manifests, but
> I am getting the following error on the clients
How does this file get populated?  If you do it manually, it might be  
a bit easier to create a server-side function to produce this  
information, rather than creating the file on each client and then  
having the client send the information back up.  I know a client of  
mine has almost the same problem, and they''ve created a server-side  
function that returns the correct location keyed off of IP address.
> "Could not retrieve configuration: Cannot reassign variable perms at
> /etc/puppet/manifests/location/work.pp:2"
>
>
> Could someone put me on the right road.
>
> # /etc/puppet/manifests/site.pp
> import "location/*.pp"
> include $location
> file { "/etc/sudoers":
>         owner => root, group => root, mode => $perms
> }
>
> # /etc/puppet/manifests/location/home.pp
> $perms = 666
>
> # /etc/puppet/manifests/location/work.pp
> $perms = 644
Yeah, Puppet won''t allow you to reassign a variable in the same  
scope, because it doesn''t know which one to use.  This would work if  
you only conditionally imported the correct location file based on  
the location, but that''s not the best way to do it.  You should  
instead do something like this:

   # site.pp
   file { "/etc/sudoers": ..., mode => $location ? { home =>
666,
work => 644 } }

This makes it easy to vary the mode by location.
> #/var/lib/puppet/facts/location.rb
>
> Facter.add("location") do
>         setcode do
>                 %x{cat /etc/location}.chomp
>         end
> end
This looks fine.  See https://reductivelabs.com/trac/puppet/wiki/ 
WritingYourOwnFunctions if you want to look at writing your own  
function instead of using this file.  If other apps use the file,  
then you could trivially create the file with the right content:

   file { "/etc/location": content => "$location\n" }

Just have the following code (once the function is in place) in your  
site manifest:

   $location = location()

You''ll probably want to pass in the hostname or IP address or
something.

  --
  The one thing more difficult than following a regimen is not  
imposing it
  on others.           -- Marcel Proust
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
  Luke Kanies | http://reductivelabs.com | http://madstop.com

Thanks for the quick reply Luke, I''m sorry if my reply is a little
noddy
> How does this file get populated?
I can query a web service with an IP address and it returns a
location, (based on information gathered from the switches).
> You should
> instead do something like this:
>
>    # site.pp
>    file { "/etc/sudoers": ..., mode => $location ? { home
=> 666,
> work => 644 } }
>
> This makes it easy to vary the mode by location.
Unless I misunderstand, this doesn''t separate the config from the
method
or allow a config file per location, (I realize I''m being   greedy
now),
most of the methods will be more complex than file.  I could build these
manifests dynamically from config files, but I am exploring just using
puppet first.

> Just have the following code (once the function is in place) in your
site manifest:
>
>    $location = location()
>
> You''ll probably want to pass in the hostname or IP address or
> something.
Good plan, I had sort of forgotten that the Puppetmaster knows the IP  
address of the client when it compiles the manifest.

Scott

On Mar 26, 2007, at 3:26 PM, Scott White wrote:
>
> I can query a web service with an IP address and it returns a
> location, (based on information gathered from the switches).
Great; that should be plenty-easy to do with a server-side function.
>> You should
>> instead do something like this:
>>
>>    # site.pp
>>    file { "/etc/sudoers": ..., mode => $location ? { home
=> 666,
>> work => 644 } }
>>
>> This makes it easy to vary the mode by location.
>
> Unless I misunderstand, this doesn''t separate the config from the
> method
> or allow a config file per location, (I realize I''m being   greedy
> now),
> most of the methods will be more complex than file.  I could build  
> these
> manifests dynamically from config files, but I am exploring just using
> puppet first.
You''re correct; I was just using your simplistic example.  Varying  
the file isn''t any more complicated, though:

   file { "/etc/sudoers: source => $location ? { home =>
"...", work
=> "..." }

  --
  The Washington Bullets are changing their name.  The owners no longer
  want their team''s name to be associated with crime.  So from now on  
the
  team will be known as The Bullets.
                  -- Paul Harvey, quoting Argus Hamilton
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
  Luke Kanies | http://reductivelabs.com | http://madstop.com