On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 1:56 PM, jcbollinger <john.bollin...@stjude.org> wrote: > > > On Sep 22, 11:05 am, Douglas Garstang <doug.garst...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 5:57 AM, jcbollinger <john.bollin...@stjude.org> >> wrote: >> >> > On Sep 21, 6:34 pm, Nigel Kersten <ni...@puppetlabs.com> wrote: >> >> On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 1:20 PM, Douglas Garstang >> >> >> <doug.garst...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> > All, >> >> >> > I have a situation where I need to get some fairly complex >> >> > configuration files onto systems, and I'm wondering if puppet can even >> >> > do this. Lets say that my external node script will go and source all >> >> > the data it needs from an external database, and dump out all >> >> > variables that the node will need. The relevant puppet module(s) will >> >> > then have to inject these variables into templates to be deployed to >> >> > the systems. >> >> >> Can you provide an example of a chunk of actual data and the desired >> >> end result to see if there's a better alternative Doug? >> >> > I second that request. The scenario presented is more a design >> > concept than a problem description. Although I am confident that >> > Puppet indeed can handle the scenario as presented, it may be that >> > there are alternative designs that would accomplish the same objective >> > in a simpler way. >> >> Well, speaking somewhat generically still, we have an application that >> will need to run multiple times on a single system, and each instance >> of that running application will have it's own config file, each with >> a variable number of items (they're disk volumes). >> >> If the external node script returned YAML data like this: >> >> appX_inst1_vol1_name: vol1 >> appX_inst1_vol1_size: 1G >> appX_inst1_vol1_active: true >> appX_inst2_vol1_name: vol2 >> appX_inst2_vol1_size: 2G >> appX_inst2_vol1_active: false >> >> ... and so on. All the volumes for inst1 need to go into one config >> file, all the volumes for inst2 in another config file and so on. I >> don't see a way that puppet can iterate over a variable number of >> items and split the data into multiple files. > > > Part of the question is why the ENC would structure the data that way > in the first place. I don't use one, so perhaps I am displaying my > ignorance, but can't ENCs assign hash and array values to variables? > As any Perl hand will know, arrays and hashes are plenty to build data > structures of arbitrary complexity.
The ENC needs to structure the data that way in order to allow puppet to reformat the data in a way that the software recognises. I don't think ENC's can do anything more complex than assign key/value pairs under 'parameters'. I've tried to put more complex data under parameters, but I can't access it in the manifest. I also need to break the data into multiple files, which erb can't do, since it can only write files to the server, not the client. > > On the Puppet side, array resource titles, defined types, and > create_resources() have enough power to pull that data back out, at > least if you structure it with a bit of care. I think hiera could > help go even further. See my post just now about passing an array to a definition. It looks like the $name field has a size limit which stops me from passing all the data I need. Not sure what create_resource is .... documentation? Doug. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Puppet Users" group. To post to this group, send email to puppet-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to puppet-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-users?hl=en.
