Overriding resources created with a define

[John T. Guthrie]

Hello all,

Suppose you have a resource that is created with a define such as the
following:

class test {
define myfile () {
file {
"/tmp/$name":
content => generate("/bin/echo","$name");
}
}

myfile {
"foo":
}
}

And it turns out that I want to create a subclass that overrides a
property of "/tmp/foo", how would I go about doing that? When I try to
add the following subclass:

class test::override inherits test {
define myfileover () {
File["/tmp/$name"] {
content => generate("/bin/echo","$name","$name")
}
}

myfileover {
"blah":
}
}

I get the following error:

Could not retrieve catalog: Only subclasses can override parameters at
/etc/puppet/network/prod/modules/test/manifests/init.pp:20 on node
xxxx. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks.

John Guthrie

[Trevor Vaughan]

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So, I believe (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that defines are
actually separately scoped from the classes that contain them and cannot
currently be overridden.

The nesting that you have below is merely a convenience for writing:

define test::myfile () { ... }

I would suggest either using a template or an inline 'if/case' statement
to apply the logic you require.

Trevor

- --
Trevor Vaughan
Vice President, Onyx Point, Inc.
email: tvau...@onyxpoint.com
phone: 410-541-ONYX (6699)

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[John T. Guthrie]

Hello all,

First, I would like to thank you for your suggestion about an 'if/case' statement.  I think that should do what I want.  However, I would think that even if defines are scoped separately from classes, that wouldn't necessarily apply in the case that I outlined below since I used a different define name in the subclass as opposed to the name for the define in the parent class.  I was trying to get a resource override into a define.  Is that not possible; i.e., can defines only handle resource definitions, but not overrides?

Thanks.

John Guthrie

[Trevor Vaughan]

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I think that the issue is that the define isn't actually scoped under
the class, so the inherit doesn't pick up that the file is actually
under that class at all. Does that make sense?

Try writing the same statement but move the defines outside of the
classes and I think you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.

Basically, you can't inherit defines (I think) because they actually
aren't derived from the Puppet Class object.

I.e. a Node is a subset of a Class, but a Define isn't.

Trevor

- --

Trevor Vaughan
Vice President, Onyx Point, Inc.
email: tvau...@onyxpoint.com
phone: 410-541-ONYX (6699)

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