On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 08:10:40AM -0700, Nigel Kersten wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 7:20 AM, jcbollinger <john.bollin...@stjude.org>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Mar 21, 8:53 pm, Nigel Kersten <ni...@puppetlabs.com> wrote:
[...]
> >> Thoughts?
> >
> > I agree that File is a mishmash, but I don't think symlinks and
> > recursive copying are the key concepts that would be good to split
> > out. Instead, I think splitting directories into their own type would
> > be the way to go.
> >
> > Consider what would happen if symlinks were made their own type. What
> > about dependencies? Right now, I can have
> >
> > service { "my_service": require => File["/etc/my_service.conf"] }
> >
> > without caring whether File["/etc/my_service.conf"] represents an
> > actual file or a symlink. I can even change that in the declaration
> > of the file without having to touch anything that depends on it. If
> > symlinks were modeled via a separate type, however, then I would need
> > everywhere to account for which files were plain and which were
> > symlinks.
>
> That's a really good point. One workaround would be to encapsulate
> such configs into a class and require that.
>
[...]
> > This, then, is the direction that makes the most sense to me:
> >
> > 1) Split out (only) directories into their own type. Among other
> > things, recursive-tree management would go into the new Directory
> > type.
> > 2) Give File and Directory each a "link_to" property by which these
> > types can be made to manage symbolic links instead of the underlying
> > regular file or directory.
>
> like our existing "target" property? How does it make sense to manage
> a symlink in a Directory type? I'm not seeing it....
>
Same reason like above. If you're doing something like
case $operatingsystem {
'Solaris': {
# Filetype or even new link type
file { '/foo': target => '/linktarget', ensure => link }
}
default {
directory { '/foo': ensure => present}
}
}
You cannot setup a dependency like require => Directory['/foo']. If the
directory type has a target attribute and ensure => link, this would be
possible.
While I think that this is a good point I still prefer splitting into
file, directory and directorytree (or similar).
One note about recursive copies. I have one case where I want to
controll owner/group/mode on a toplevel directory and just owner/group
for all the children in that directory. Thats not possible at the moment
(or not that I'm aware of). If I now can define Directorytree['foo'] and
Directory['foo'] I would be able to manage different aspects for parent
directory and children.
So +1 for Nigel's initial post from me.
-Stefan
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