Puppet users - Feb 2013 - Puppet agent daemon not seeing a Facter fact

Hi all, first post here... reposting this from Stack Overflow as it
didn''t
get much traction there...

I am using puppet to read a fact from facter, and based on that I apply a 
different configuration to my modules.
Problem:

the puppet agent isn''t seeing this fact. Running puppet agent --test
interactively
works as expected. Even running it non-interactively from a script seems to 
work fine. Only the agent *daemon* is screwing up.
Process:

I am deploying an Ubuntu-based app stack on EC2. Using userdata 
(#cloud-config), I set an environment variable in /etc/environment:

export FACTER_tl_role=development

then immediately in #cloud-config, i source /etc/environment. only THEN i 
apt-get install puppet (i moved away from using package: puppet to 
eliminate ambiguity in the sequence of #cloud-config steps)

Once the instance boots, I confirm that the fact is available: running facter 
tl_role returns "development". I then check /var/log/syslog, and
apparently
the puppet agent is not seeing this fact - I know this because it''s
unable
to compile the catalog, and there''s nothing (blank) where I''m
supposed to
be seeing the value of the variable set depending on this fact.

However, running puppet agent --test interactively compiles and runs the 
catalog just fine. even running this from the #cloud-config script 
(immediately after installing puppet) also works just fine.

How do I make this fact available to the puppet agent? Restarting the agent 
service makes no difference, it remains unaware of the custom fact. 
Rebooting the instance also makes no difference.

here''s some code:

EC2 userdata:

#cloud-config

puppet:
  conf:
    agent:
      server: "puppet.foo.bar"
      certname: "%i.%f"
      report: "true"

runcmd:
- sleep 20
- echo ''export FACTER_tl_role=development'' >>
/etc/environment
- . /etc/environment
- apt-get install puppet
- puppet agent --test

Main puppet manifest:

# /etc/puppet/manifests/site.pp
node default {
case $tl_role {
    ''development'':  { $sitedomain = "dev.foo.bar"}
    ''production'':   { $sitedomain = "new.foo.bar"}
}
class {"code" : sitedomain => $sitedomain}
class {"apache::site" : sitedomain => $sitedomain}
class {"nodejs::grunt-daemon" : sitedomain => $sitedomain}

And then I see failures where $sitedomain is supposed to be, so $tl_role 
appears to be not set.

Any ideas? This is exploding my brain....

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On Friday, February 15, 2013 9:56:09 AM UTC-6, Eugene Brodsky
wrote:
>
> Hi all, first post here... reposting this from Stack Overflow as it
didn''t
> get much traction there...
>
> I am using puppet to read a fact from facter, and based on that I apply a 
> different configuration to my modules.
> Problem:
>
> the puppet agent isn''t seeing this fact. Running puppet agent
--test interactively
> works as expected. Even running it non-interactively from a script seems to
> work fine. Only the agent *daemon* is screwing up.
>
You seem to be assuming that the daemon will have the environment of a 
login shell, and that when it runs Facter it will provide its own full 
environment to the child process.  Neither of those is a safe assumption.

There are several ways to reliably provide custom facts to Puppet.  The 
customary way is to write a bona fide Facter pluginand distribute it via 
Puppet''s automatic pluginsync mechanism, and that''s what I
would
recommend.  If you want something simpler, however, then you might want to 
check out this plugin: 
https://github.com/ripienaar/facter-facts/tree/master/facts-dot-d.


John

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A bit of an update: I ended up doing something very hackish, but it works.
Basically, after installing Puppet, I stop the agent, and add a line to 
/etc/init.d/puppet to source /etc/environment. Then I start the agent.
Works fantastically.
I do realize this is a little ugly, but in this case was simpler to 
implement and easier to manage going forward than distributing custom 
Facter plugins.
Thank you John for pointing me in the right direction.
Cheers!

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