custom facter fact not available from client

[Mike Reed]

Hello all,

I'm attempting to create a custom fact to identify the network to which a node belongs to. Below is the fact definition (I realize this fact isn't complete but wanted to test what I have so far):

require 'facter'
Facter.add('network_geo') do
  setcode do
    hostname       = Facter.value(:hostname)
    hostname_array = hostname.split('-')

    # debug info
    puts "My network is #{hostname_array}"
  end
end

I then added the fact into a module named sys_ident and more specifically, into a directory like so: /modules/sys_ident/lib/facter/network_geo.rb

For debugging purposes, I created a quick init.pp for the sys_ident module and added this:

class sys_ident {
  notify{"My network identity is: ${network_geo}" :}
  notify{"My hostname identity is: ${hostname}" :}
}

I then turned on pluginsync on both the puppetmaster and client within puppet.conf.

After an initial run on my puppet client, I'm getting the following:

seanconnery-02:/$ sudo puppet agent -tv
Info: Retrieving pluginfacts
Info: Retrieving plugin
Info: Loading facts in /var/lib/puppet/lib/facter/network_geo.rb
My network is ["seanconnery", "02"]
My network is ["seanconnery", "02"]
Info: Caching catalog for seanconnery-02.domain
Info: Applying configuration version '1409685071'
Notice: My network identity is:
Notice: /Stage[main]/Sys_ident/Notify[My network identity is: ]/message: defined 'message' as 'My network identity is: '
Notice: My hostname identity is: seanconnery-02
Notice: /Stage[main]/Sys_ident/Notify[My hostname identity is: seanconnery-02]/message: defined 'message' as 'My hostname identity is: seanconnery-02'
Notice: Finished catalog run in 0.04 seconds

As you can see from the output, I'm not receiving the expected output from my "network_geo" notify parameter (also not sure why I'm getting the "My network" twice.  If I run facter from the puppet client, I get nothing in return:

seanconnery-02:/$ facter -p network_geo

For good measure, running the same command with the "hostname" fact produces this:

seanconnery-02:/$ facter -p hostname
seanconnery-02
 
Based on the output from my client run, it does look like the fact is making it to the client but I can't seem to actually invoke it. 

I feel that things are generally in the right place and after considerable troubleshooting, the only thing I can think of is a potential order-of-operations problem. 

Does anybody have any suggestions as to why this may be occurring?

Thank you in advance for your time and support and my apologies for the extra-long post.

Cheers,

Mike

[Nan Liu]

The puts command simply print a message and never returned a value for the fact. You probably meant something along the lines of:

 Facter.add('network_geo') do

  setcode do

    hostname_array =  Facter.value(:hostname).split('-')

    # debug info
    puts "My network is #{hostname_array}"

    hostname_array.first
  end
end

If you are developing facts, it's much easier to just drop into IRB and get everything working there rather than doing round trip debugging between puppet and facter:

irb(main):001:0> require 'facter'

=> true

irb(main):002:0> Facter.value("hostname")

=> "demo-1"

irb(main):003:0> Facter.value("hostname").split('-')

=> ["demo", "1"]

irb(main):006:0>  Facter.add('network_geo') do

irb(main):007:1*   setcode do

irb(main):008:2*     hostname_array =  Facter.value(:hostname).split('-')

irb(main):009:2>

irb(main):010:2*     # debug info

irb(main):011:2*     puts "My network is #{hostname_array}"

irb(main):012:2>     hostname_array.first

irb(main):013:2>   end

irb(main):014:1> end

irb(main):015:0> Facter.value(:network_geo)

My network is ["demo", "1"]

=> "demo"

If you run your existing fact in irb, you'll see the output is nil instead:

Facter.value(:network_geo)

My network is ["demo", "1"]

=> nil

HTH,

Nan

[Mike Reed]

Hey Nan,

Thank you for pointing out the issue around "puts" and why the fact was never actually obtaining a value.  That makes sense and definitely fixes my problem.

Also, the irb is awesome and has significantly cut down my debugging time. 

Thank you for the quick response and for your help.  Much appreciated.

Cheers,

Mike