Facter path issue

[Jim Richard]

Facter on a Windows 2008R2 server is doing something weird. Version of facter is 2.0.2.

If I, from the Puppet command prompt, do a "echo %Path%", I see exactly what I expect. But if I say "facter Path", it shows me all of the Puppet added path stuff twice, ie. the output is almost twice as much text.

Oddly, the original pre: puppet agent install path data is still reported by facter, correctly, not doubled up, but all of the path items added by the puppet agent install process show up twice when I issue a "facter Path". 

My "real" path:

E:\oracle\product\11.2.0\db_1\bin;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Unix;E:\oracle\product\11.2.0\db_1\OPatch;C:\jdk_release\bin;F:\RATEWARE

What facter thinks is my Path:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\puppet\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\facter\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\hiera\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\sys\ruby\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\sys\tools\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\puppet\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\facter\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\hiera\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\sys\ruby\bin;C:\ProgramFiles(x86)\PuppetLabs\Puppet\sys\tools\bin;E:\oracle\product\11.2.0\db_1\bin;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Unix;E:\oracle\product\11.2.0\db_1\OPatch;C:\jdk_release\bin;F:\RATEWARE

Any ideas what might cause this?

[Rob Reynolds]

Note the first thing that facter.bat / puppet.bat runs is a call to environment.bat, which ensures that the console has all of the right environment variables set and it updates PATH as well.

Why it is doubling up is another issue entirely.

Try this - open a command line and call:

echo %PATH%

environment.bat

echo %PATH%

Oddly enough, I don't see  C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\bin in your original path as I might expect to see.

How did you install facter on your Windows system?

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[Jim Richard]

Thanks for the quick reply Rob.

I went ahead and spun up a new Server2008R2 virtual machine to test a very basic install:

grabbed the iso from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11093
installed Windows as usual, did the Windows update dance reboot, reboot, etc
got the puppet agent from https://downloads.puppetlabs.com/windows/, 
I tried the most recent agent version and even the oldest, 2.7 version, both the same
I also tried installing to the Administrator account as well as installing to another account

And, I saw the same behavior.

I tried echo %PATH% and then environment.bat and that did give a clue. I ran environment.bat multiple times and each time the Path var in the Puppet shell grows. I've attached a screen shot so you can see what I mean.

So, it looks like the Puppet shell initialization process executes environment.bat twice; that happens for scheduled agent runs as well.

If I just wanted Facter to report back the "true" system Path, minus all of the puppet shell added stuff, what would you suggest. Pull it from the registry? Or via a custom fact, take what Facter reports and chop off all of the extra Puppet shell applied stuff with a regex?

[Rob Reynolds]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 8:36 AM, Jim Richard <jimr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply Rob.

I went ahead and spun up a new Server2008R2 virtual machine to test a very basic install:

grabbed the iso from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11093
installed Windows as usual, did the Windows update dance reboot, reboot, etc
got the puppet agent from https://downloads.puppetlabs.com/windows/, 
I tried the most recent agent version and even the oldest, 2.7 version, both the same
I also tried installing to the Administrator account as well as installing to another account

And, I saw the same behavior.

I tried echo %PATH% and then environment.bat and that did give a clue. I ran environment.bat multiple times and each time the Path var in the Puppet shell grows. I've attached a screen shot so you can see what I mean.

So, it looks like the Puppet shell initialization process executes environment.bat twice; that happens for scheduled agent runs as well.

This is probably because puppet.bat and facter.bat both call it. :(

 

If I just wanted Facter to report back the "true" system Path, minus all of the puppet shell added stuff, what would you suggest. Pull it from the registry? Or via a custom fact, take what Facter reports and chop off all of the extra Puppet shell applied stuff with a regex?

Perhaps a custom fact?

 

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[Jim Richard]

Yep, a custom fact. In case someone else happens upon this looking for a similar answer, here's my custom fact to override Facter's default path fact:

Facter.add('path') do

  confine :kernel => 'windows'

  setcode do

   my_fact = Facter::Util::Resolution.exec('C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /C "reg query "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment" /v Path""')

   my_fact.rpartition('REG_EXPAND_SZ').slice(2).strip

  end

end

Thanks Rob !

[Rob Reynolds]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:56 AM, Jim Richard <jimr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yep, a custom fact. In case someone else happens upon this looking for a similar answer, here's my custom fact to override Facter's default path fact:

Facter.add('path') do

  confine :kernel => 'windows'

  setcode do

   my_fact = Facter::Util::Resolution.exec('C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /C "reg query "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment" /v Path""')

   my_fact.rpartition('REG_EXPAND_SZ').slice(2).strip

  end

end

Thanks Rob !

Don't forget about file system redirection and that there is also registry redirection - http://puppetlabs.com/blog/how-avoid-common-windows-gotchas-puppet

Also, you need to combine the HKCU values as well to get the full path.

 

On Thursday, July 17, 2014 3:37:03 PM UTC-4, Jim Richard wrote:

Facter on a Windows 2008R2 server is doing something weird. Version of facter is 2.0.2.

If I, from the Puppet command prompt, do a "echo %Path%", I see exactly what I expect. But if I say "facter Path", it shows me all of the Puppet added path stuff twice, ie. the output is almost twice as much text.

Oddly, the original pre: puppet agent install path data is still reported by facter, correctly, not doubled up, but all of the path items added by the puppet agent install process show up twice when I issue a "facter Path". 

My "real" path:

E:\oracle\product\11.2.0\db_1\bin;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Unix;E:\oracle\product\11.2.0\db_1\OPatch;C:\jdk_release\bin;F:\RATEWARE

What facter thinks is my Path:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\puppet\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\facter\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\hiera\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\sys\ruby\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\sys\tools\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\puppet\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\facter\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\hiera\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Puppet Labs\Puppet\sys\ruby\bin;C:\ProgramFiles(x86)\PuppetLabs\Puppet\sys\tools\bin;E:\oracle\product\11.2.0\db_1\bin;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Unix;E:\oracle\product\11.2.0\db_1\OPatch;C:\jdk_release\bin;F:\RATEWARE

Any ideas what might cause this?

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