How to have puppet install package only if one file doesn't exist?

[staceyt...@gmail.com]

Hi all,

I am trying to use puppet to push package "flex-devel-2.5.35-9.el6.i686" only if the file /usr/lib/libl.a doesn't exist.

I tried several ways, but still can't get it work.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Stacey

[kaustubh chaudhari]

You can create a custom fact to check for that file if the file dose not exist then install else do nothing.

==
Facter.add(:bigfix) do
  confine :kernel => "Linux"
  setcode do
    if File.exist? "/etc/init.d/besclient"
        "true"
    else "false"
    end
  end
end
==

if this file exist i ignore it else i install bigfix.

Hope this help.

-Kaustubh

[staceyt...@gmail.com]

Hi Kaustubh,

Thank you very much! I will give it a try!

Thanks,
Stacey

[jcbollinger]

Yes: declare the package unconditionally.

File /usr/lib/libl.a belongs to the package you're considering installing.  Any locally-built, system-wide Flex should be in /usr/local, not in /usr, so you're basically saying that you always want the flex-devel package to be present on the system.  This goes straight to Puppet's core behavior: it manages machine state, performing those state changes needed to put target machines into a specified state.  As such, it tests the current state to determine what to do.  You don't need to do anything special to achieve that, just

package { "flex-devel":
  ensure => 'present'
  # or, ensure => 'latest'
}

If the package is already present (alternatively, if the latest available version is already present) then Puppet will not attempt to install / update.


John

[Toky]

I think the cleanest way would be to check on the package resource like so:

package { "flex-devel":
  ensure => 'present',
  unless => '/usr/bin/test -f /usr/lib/libl.a',
}

Docs => https://docs.puppetlabs.com/puppet/latest/reference/lang_conditional.html#unless-statements

Cheers,

On Wednesday, June 10, 2015 at 9:27:14 AM UTC-4, staceyt...@gmail.com wrote:

[Haani Niyaz]

I don't think your proposed solution will work since the catalogue is compiled on the master. 

[jcbollinger]

On Friday, June 19, 2015 at 1:20:23 PM UTC-5, Toky wrote:

I think the cleanest way would be to check on the package resource like so:

package { "flex-devel":
  ensure => 'present',
  unless => '/usr/bin/test -f /usr/lib/libl.a',
}

Docs => https://docs.puppetlabs.com/puppet/latest/reference/lang_conditional.html#unless-statements

This will not work because the Package resource type does not have an 'unless' parameter -- that's a feature specific to Exec resources.  The documentation referenced is about something different: the 'unless' statement.  An 'unless' statement could be used to avoid declaring the package at all in the event that a custom fact communicated that file /usr/lib/libfl.a was present on the target machine, but that would require writing that custom fact.

I still claim that the best approach is to let the provider handle it.  This case does not require any kind of conditionality at the manifest level.


John