genconf generated config aborts

[Douglas Garstang]

When I run puppetmasterd with the --genconfig option and use that as
my starting puppet.conf file, puppetmasterd dumps the full config to
the screen and then aborts. This is currently happening with 0.25 and
I was also seeing it with 0.24.

What's up with that? I'm trying to get a baseline good working puppet
config to start.

Doug.

[Paul Lathrop]

Doug,

Remove genconfig = true from the puppet.conf file

--Paul

[Douglas Garstang]

D'oh! Thanks.

--
Regards,

Douglas Garstang
http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang
Email: doug.g...@gmail.com
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

[Nigel Kersten]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Paul Lathrop <paul.l...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> Doug,
>
> Remove genconfig = true from the puppet.conf file

I've often wondered about the utility of having that in the generated
config file, and it's bitten me several times.

Is there a reason we don't strip it out?

>
> --Paul
>
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Douglas Garstang
> <doug.g...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> When I run puppetmasterd with the --genconfig option and use that as
>> my starting puppet.conf file, puppetmasterd dumps the full config to
>> the screen and then aborts. This is currently happening with 0.25 and
>> I was also seeing it with 0.24.
>>
>> What's up with that? I'm trying to get a baseline good working puppet
>> config to start.
>>
>> Doug.
>>
>> >
>>
>
> >
>

--
nigel

[Paul Lathrop]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Nigel Kersten <nig...@google.com> wrote:
> I've often wondered about the utility of having that in the generated
> config file, and it's bitten me several times.
>
> Is there a reason we don't strip it out?

+1

--Paul

[Douglas Garstang]

Please don't strip it out. The documentation is terrible and this at
least gives me a known good working config.

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Nigel Kersten <nig...@google.com> wrote:
>

[Nigel Kersten]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Douglas Garstang
<doug.g...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Please don't strip it out. The documentation is terrible and this at
> least gives me a known good working config.

But it doesn't give you a working config. We're not talking about
stripping out the --genconfig functionality, but that when you
generate a config in this manner, it doesn't include:

genconfig = true

so it is actually a "good working config" rather than one you have to
edit before deploying :)

--
nigel

[Paul Lathrop]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Douglas Garstang
<doug.g...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Please don't strip it out. The documentation is terrible and this at
> least gives me a known good working config.

Douglas,

You misunderstand. Nigel and I are saying the generated config should
be known to *work*; it shouldn't have genconfig set to true in it. It
is counterintuitive for the output of --genconfig to be a config file
that will not start up a puppetmasterd in "normal" mode.

--Paul

[Douglas Garstang]

Agreed.

[James Turnbull]

2009/10/14 Douglas Garstang <doug.g...@gmail.com>:

>
> Please don't strip it out. The documentation is terrible and this at
> least gives me a known good working config.
>

Hi - please expand on the "Documentation is terrible" comment. :)

How can we improve it? What's wrong with it? Where are the areas
that you're struggling with? What's missing?

Regards

James Turnbull

--
Author of:
* Pro Linux Systems Administration (http://tinyurl.com/linuxadmin)
* Pulling Strings with Puppet (http://tinyurl.com/pupbook)
* Pro Nagios 2.0 (http://tinyurl.com/pronagios)
* Hardening Linux (http://tinyurl.com/hardeninglinux)

[James Turnbull]

2009/10/14 Paul Lathrop <paul.l...@gmail.com>:

> You misunderstand. Nigel and I are saying the generated config should
> be known to *work*; it shouldn't have genconfig set to true in it. It
> is counterintuitive for the output of --genconfig to be a config file
> that will not start up a puppetmasterd in "normal" mode.
>

Paul/Nigel/Douglas - ticket please... :)

[Rob Chanter]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 3:49 PM, James Turnbull <ja...@lovedthanlost.net> wrote:
>
> 2009/10/14 Paul Lathrop <paul.l...@gmail.com>:
>> You misunderstand. Nigel and I are saying the generated config should
>> be known to *work*; it shouldn't have genconfig set to true in it. It
>> is counterintuitive for the output of --genconfig to be a config file
>> that will not start up a puppetmasterd in "normal" mode.
>>

I don't think it's necessarily a *bad* thing for generated or default
configs to need some sort of inspection and action before they flip
into "working" mode (see, for example, ClamAV's need to comment out
the "Example" line), but I agree that having genconfig write its own
line into the generated file is slightly odd and gratuitously
recursive.

FWIW, my own view is that Postfix's postconf(1) utility is an
excellent model for config file management.

cheers
rob