On Wednesday, September 11, 2013 2:49:50 AM UTC-5, Steve Wray wrote:
>
> I need to get an array of hostnames of clients of the puppet server.
>
> There doesn't seem to be a simple way to do this so I've tried a few
> methods.
>
> I've tried a curl expression in a fact like this:
>
> curl -s -k -H "Accept: yaml"
> https://localhost:8140/production/facts_search/search?facts.nodetypet=testnodes
>
>
In other words, this is intended to retrieve the desired information via
the master's REST API. I'm not quite making the connection here, however:
how is putting that expression into a fact supposed to achieve your result?
Do you mean you have a custom fact that executes that command and parses
the YAML result to produce the desired array? That seems odd, because in
that case 'localhost' probably would not resolve to the correct machine (it
would be the client, not the master), and because the result is not a
property of the node.
Or do you mean that you pass the command itself as a literal fact value,
which the master executes locally to extract the result? Again in that
case the value is not a property of the node, so it doesn't appear to make
much sense to use a fact. Also, it would be a serious security risk for
the master to execute commands provided by clients.
> where I've got a nodetype fact which works fine for me.
>
> Now, this used to work but doesn't any more. Between it working and now
> I've changed to using puppetdb. I'm not sure if theres a connection.
>
> The error returned is:
>
> Caught NoMethodError: undefined method `<<' for nil:NilClass
>
There could be a connection. I have lately seen some evidence that
puppetdb may not reliably escape fact values when it stores them. That
would be a serious flaw, but I cannot confirm its existence.
Alternatively, if you have also updated your master, then it may be that
the data returned by the REST call has changed in form or content. Do you
get what you expect if you run it from the command line?
>
> The next thing I tried was to get each interesting node to create a file
> on the puppetmaster server. So I now have a bunch of files in /tmp/ with
> distinctive names which contain only the hostname of that puppet client.
>
Yuck.
>
> I have a fact which is supposed to cat these together and, with luck, turn
> them into an array at some time. What I currently have is this:
>
>
Facts are properties of target nodes, and their values are evaluated
there. Dropping a bunch of files on the master could allow the Puppet
agent to collect data from them into a fact when it runs on the Puppet
master server, but it cannot do anything for agents running on other
nodes. Do you need the information on nodes other than the master?
> require 'facter'
> Facter.add("nodelist") do
> setcode do
> path="/tmp"
> if File.exists?(path) && File.directory?(path) && ! Dir[path +
> '/*'].empty?
> output = Facter::Util::Resolution.exec("/bin/cat
> /tmp/testnode*").split('\n').join(',')
> else
> output = "empty"
> end
> output
> end
> end
>
> but this isn't getting anything in the fact at all, not even "empty".
> Running that cat command on the commandline returns exactly what I would
> expect.
>
If you're not getting the fact at all, even after you restart the agent
(though that should not be necessary), then I conclude that the fact has
not been synced to the client.
>
> If I run facter on the commandline like this:
> FACTERLIB="/etc/puppet/modules/smokeping_prep/lib/facts" facter nodelist
>
> I get the list I expect.
>
On *which* command line? You could have the fact installed on the master,
but not synced to clients.
>
> On each node I have this:
> @@file { "testnode-{$::fqdn}":
> ensure => file,
> path => "/tmp/testnode-$::fqdn.txt",
> mode => 640, owner => root,
> tag => 'testnodes',
> content => "$::hostname
> ",
> }
>
> On the puppetmaster node definition I have this:
> File <<| tag == "testnodes" |>>
>
> file { 'nodelist':
> path => '/tmp/nodelist',
> content => "
> $::nodelist
> "
> }
> }
>
> and I was expecting a file /tmp/nodelist to contain the text from the fact
> $::nodelist but the file is empty.
>
>
1. You are collecting the Files only on the master, therefore only the
master's $::nodelist fact could provide the information you want.
2. Facts are evaluated before catalog compilation, therefore even the
master's $::nodelist fact would be perpetually one cycle behind.
>
> So, sorry, but I have three questions:
>
> 1. why isn't that curl getting the facts? Why is it getting this NoMethod
> error?
>
Beats me. It might help for you to explain more fully how you are using
it, and to present the curl output actually generated.
> 2. why isn't that new nodelist fact working? If a fact has an error where
> does this get logged?
>
See my discussion above for possibilities. Any log output would show up in
the agent's log destination, which by default is the regular system log.
On the agent.
> 3. Is there an easier way to do what I want? An array of hostnames of
> clients matching a fact which I can then pass to other Puppet commands. On
> the face of it I'd think this was something many people would want to do.
> In my case I want to generate a list of Smokeping slaves as a parameter for
> Puppet-generated Smokeping targets. Ie Puppet already generates configs for
> the targets and the slaves and I want to populate the target config with a
> set of slaves.
>
>
There is probably an easier way, but it's very unclear what you actually do
want. You are focusing very narrowly on getting an array of hostnames, but
that is probably not the best vehicle to get you to your ultimate
objective. Quite possibly exported resources would do the trick for you if
used correctly. I have no familiarity with Smokeping, though, so you'll
have to help me there.
Are you building this from scratch, or using a third party module such as
https://github.com/tobru/puppet-smokeping ? What ultimately needs to
appear on the target node(s) (presumably contents of some file)? What
declarations, specifically, do you want to be able to make in your Puppet
manifests?
John
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