Puppet users - Sep 2011 - Avoid user creation/deletion possible?

Hi all,

is there a way to avoid changing the state (present/absent) of a user? In my
case I just want to do a kind of ''check'' if the user is
present. If so, I will do some file-resource stuff on him. If not, nothing
should be done at all.

Example:

# create the user resource
user { ''someuser'':
  ...
}

# copy file if user exists
# do nothing if not
file { "/home/someuser/.bashrc":
  require => "someuser",
  ...
}

Obviously I cannot use ''ensure => present|absent'' for the
user, since this would change its state. And I''m not sure if
it''s OK just to omit the ''ensure'' attribute. Any
ideas?

Thanks Bernd 

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Sorry, the file resource should of course be:

# copy file if user exists
# do nothing if not
file { "/home/someuser/.bashrc":
  require => User["someuser"],
  ...
}
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: puppet-users@googlegroups.com [mailto:puppet-
> users@googlegroups.com] Im Auftrag von Bernd Adamowicz
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 8. September 2011 10:58
> An: ''puppet-users@googlegroups.com''
> Betreff: [Puppet Users] Avoid user creation/deletion possible?
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> is there a way to avoid changing the state (present/absent) of a user?
> In my case I just want to do a kind of ''check'' if the
user is present.
> If so, I will do some file-resource stuff on him. If not, nothing
> should be done at all.
> 
> Example:
> 
> # create the user resource
> user { ''someuser'':
>   ...
> }
> 
> # copy file if user exists
> # do nothing if not
> file { "/home/someuser/.bashrc":
>   require => "someuser",
>   ...
> }
> 
> Obviously I cannot use ''ensure => present|absent'' for
the user, since
> this would change its state. And I''m not sure if it''s OK
just to omit
> the ''ensure'' attribute. Any ideas?
> 
> Thanks Bernd
> 
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On Sep 8, 3:58 am, Bernd Adamowicz <Bernd.Adamow...@esailors.de>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> is there a way to avoid changing the state (present/absent) of a user? In
my case I just want to do a kind of ''check'' if the user is
present. If so, I will do some file-resource stuff on him. If not, nothing
should be done at all.
>
> Example:
>
> # create the user resource
> user { ''someuser'':
>   ...
>
> }
>
> # copy file if user exists
> # do nothing if not
> file { "/home/someuser/.bashrc":
>   require => "someuser",
>   ...
>
> }
>
> Obviously I cannot use ''ensure => present|absent'' for
the user, since this would change its state. And I''m not sure if
it''s OK just to omit the ''ensure'' attribute. Any
ideas?

You could write a custom fact that extracts all the system user names
(or all the names of /home subdirectories, or ...) and use that to
drive your resource management.  You could then do something like the
following:

# Split the custom fact value into an array
$user_array = split($::users_i_care_about, '' '')

# Declare the desired resources for each user:
my_user_stuff { $user_array:
  # parameters of the my_user_stuff type, if needed
}

define my_user_stuff () {
  # $name is the name of the resource instance
  file { "/home/${name}/.bashrc":
    ensure => file,
     # ...
  }

  # other resources for this user as needed ...
}


That has a bit of code smell to my nose, though, mostly around the
fact that you don''t know what users are actually supposed to be
defined (which in turn is why a custom fact is involved).  You could
do the same job with a shell script launched periodically by cron, and
I think I would prefer that myself.  But I would use Puppet to create
and manage the crontab entry.


John

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> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: puppet-users@googlegroups.com [mailto:puppet-
> users@googlegroups.com] Im Auftrag von jcbollinger
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 8. September 2011 15:45
> An: Puppet Users
> Betreff: [Puppet Users] Re: Avoid user creation/deletion possible?
> 
> 
> 
> On Sep 8, 3:58 am, Bernd Adamowicz <Bernd.Adamow...@esailors.de>
> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > is there a way to avoid changing the state (present/absent) of a
> user? In my case I just want to do a kind of ''check'' if
the user is
> present. If so, I will do some file-resource stuff on him. If not,
> nothing should be done at all.
> >
> > Example:
> >
> > # create the user resource
> > user { ''someuser'':
> >   ...
> >
> > }
> >
> > # copy file if user exists
> > # do nothing if not
> > file { "/home/someuser/.bashrc":
> >   require => "someuser",
> >   ...
> >
> > }
> >
> > Obviously I cannot use ''ensure => present|absent''
for the user, since
> this would change its state. And I''m not sure if it''s OK
just to omit
> the ''ensure'' attribute. Any ideas?
> 
> 
> You could write a custom fact that extracts all the system user names
> (or all the names of /home subdirectories, or ...) and use that to
> drive your resource management.  You could then do something like the
> following:
> 
> # Split the custom fact value into an array
> $user_array = split($::users_i_care_about, '' '')
> 
> # Declare the desired resources for each user:
> my_user_stuff { $user_array:
>   # parameters of the my_user_stuff type, if needed
> }
> 
> define my_user_stuff () {
>   # $name is the name of the resource instance
>   file { "/home/${name}/.bashrc":
>     ensure => file,
>      # ...
>   }
> 
>   # other resources for this user as needed ...
> }
> 
> 
> That has a bit of code smell to my nose, though, mostly around the
> fact that you don''t know what users are actually supposed to be
> defined (which in turn is why a custom fact is involved).  You could
> do the same job with a shell script launched periodically by cron, and
> I think I would prefer that myself.  But I would use Puppet to create
> and manage the crontab entry.
> 
> 
> John
> 
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> For more options, visit this group at
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I''m already thinking about your suggestions. If I do it this way,
I''ll post the results here.
Thanks, John!

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