Facter 4.0.27 is now available

[Florin Dragos]

Hello,

The Facter team is happy to announce the release of Facter 4.0.27.

Here is what changed:

New features

• Networking facts for OSX #1929
• FreeBSD disks and partitions facts #553
• Use puppet AIO VERSION file to specify AIO version #549
• EC2 facts for Windows #546
• EC2 facts for Linux #544
• External facts cache #541
• Support for processors facts on *BSD #489

Bug fixes

• Networking fact on linux should have logic for selecting IPs #1928
• Facter sometimes pollutes the calling processes environment (race condition) #1932

Feel free to reach out on slack or open a ticket on https://tickets.puppetlabs.com/projects/FACT with facter-ng label. Or, even better, open a PR on the facter repository, targeting the 4.x branch.

Best regards,

Florin Dragos

[Eirik Øverby]

Hi,

I've trying since the initial Facter 4 release to find information on how I can use it - with Puppet, specifically. Is that documented anywhere? It would also be useful to know what "the big deal" with Facter 4 is. This is also something that was referenced in previous announcements here but I have not been able to find anything substantial on that. Am I blind? :)

/Eirik

On 6/25/20 9:28 AM, Florin Dragos wrote:
> Hello,
>

> The Facter team is happy to announce the release of *Facter 4.0.27 <https://rubygems.org/gems/facter/versions/4.0.27>.*
> *
> *

> Here is what changed:
>
>
> New features
>

> * Networking facts for OSX #1929 <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter/pull/1929>
> * FreeBSD disks and partitions facts #553 <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter-ng/pull/553>
> * Use puppet AIO VERSION file to specify AIO version #549 <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter-ng/pull/549>
> * EC2 facts for Windows #546 <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter-ng/pull/546>
> * EC2 facts for Linux #544 <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter-ng/pull/544>
> * External facts cache #541 <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter-ng/pull/541>
> * Support for processors facts on *BSD #489 <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter-ng/pull/489>
>
>
> <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter/blob/4.x/CHANGELOG.md#fixed>Bug fixes
>
> * Networking fact on linux should have logic for selecting IPs #1928 <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter/pull/1928>
> * Facter sometimes pollutes the calling processes environment (race condition) #1932 <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter/pull/1932>
>
>
> Feel free to reach out onslack <https://puppetcommunity.slack.com/archives/C0W1X7ZAL>or open a ticket onhttps://tickets.puppetlabs.com/projects/FACTwith facter-nglabel. Or, evenbetter, open a PR on the facter <https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter> repository, targeting the 4.x branch.
>
> Best regards,
> Florin Dragos
>
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[bogdan...@puppet.com]

Hi Eirik,

Facter 4 is the successor of Facter 3. Facter 3 was written in C++, and Facter 4 is implemented from scratch in Ruby. 

Facter 4 is  a "big deal" :D because:

- it aim for 100% compatibility with Facter 3

- as Facter 4 is written in Ruby, it is packaged as a Gem and can replace Facter 2.x in many CI tests that were not using Facter 3 because it was not packaged as a Gem.

- although our most important target is to reach compatibility with Facter 3, we already added new features like: 

                        - granular fact blocking and caching (you are able to cache/block almost any fact, from any level of the hierarchy);

                        - custom fact groups can be defined in facter.conf. You can use these groups to cache or block all the facts in the specific group;

                        - structured facts, in custom facts. You are able to write custom facts with dot in their name and Facter 4 will automatically create the hierarchy for you.

Facter 4 is already provided as a gem on Rubygems and is intended to replace Facter 2.x in most deployment. If you are using the latest puppet as a gem, then you are already using Facter 4 :)  

Facter 4 is also packaged with puppet-agent AIO and can be enabled via a feature flag `puppet config set facterng true`.  As we are still under development we recommend that the feature flag be enabled only for testing purposes and not for production. 

And, you are not blind :D, currently there is no documentation for Facter 4, except the changelog. We will provide more details once Facter 4 is ready to fully replace Facter 3.

Best regards,

Bogdan Irimie