concat

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Module Description - What the module does and why it is useful
3. Setup - The basics of getting started with concat
   • What concat affects
   • Beginning with concat
4. Usage - Configuration options and additional functionality
5. Reference - An under-the-hood peek at what the module is doing and how
   • Defines
   • Parameters
   • Removed functionality
6. Limitations - OS compatibility, etc.
7. Development - Guide for contributing to the module

Overview

The concat module lets you construct files from multiple ordered fragments of text.

Module Description

The concat module lets you gather concat::fragment resources from your other modules and order them into a coherent file through a single concat resource.

Beginning with concat

To start using concat you need to create:

• A concat{} resource for the final file.
• One or more concat::fragment{}s.

A minimal example might be:

concat { '/tmp/file':
  ensure => present,
}

concat::fragment { 'tmpfile':
  target  => '/tmp/file',
  content => 'test contents',
  order   => '01'
}

Usage

Maintain a list of the major modules on a node

To maintain an motd file that lists the modules on one of your nodes, first create a class to frame up the file:

class motd {
  $motd = '/etc/motd'

  concat { $motd:
    owner => 'root',
    group => 'root',
    mode  => '0644'
  }

  concat::fragment{ 'motd_header':
    target  => $motd,
    content => "\nPuppet modules on this server:\n\n",
    order   => '01'
  }

  # let local users add to the motd by creating a file called
  # /etc/motd.local
  concat::fragment{ 'motd_local':
    target => $motd,
    source => '/etc/motd.local',
    order  => '15'
  }
}

# let other modules register themselves in the motd
define motd::register($content="", $order='10') {
  if $content == "" {
    $body = $name
  } else {
    $body = $content
  }

  concat::fragment{ "motd_fragment_$name":
    target  => '/etc/motd',
    order   => $order,
    content => "    -- $body\n"
  }
}

Then, in the declarations for each module on the node, add motd::register{ 'Apache': } to register the module in the motd.

class apache {
  include apache::install, apache::config, apache::service

  motd::register{ 'Apache': }
}

These two steps populate the /etc/motd file with a list of the installed and registered modules, which stays updated even if you just remove the registered modules' include lines. System administrators can append text to the list by writing to /etc/motd.local.

When you're finished, the motd file will look something like this:

  Puppet modules on this server:

    -- Apache
    -- MySQL

  <contents of /etc/motd.local>

Reference

Defines

• concat: Manages a file, compiled from one or more text fragments.
• concat::fragment: Manages a fragment of text to be compiled into a file.

Types

• concat_file: Generates a file with content from fragments sharing a common unique tag.
• concat_fragment: Manages the fragment.

Parameters

Define: concat

All the parameters listed below are optional.

backup

Specifies whether (and how) to back up the destination file before overwriting it. Your value gets passed on to Puppet's native file resource for execution. Valid options: 'true', 'false', or a string representing either a target filebucket or a filename extension beginning with ".". Default value: 'puppet'.

backup_fragments

Specifies whether to backup concat fragments using the backup setting of the target concat file. Valid options: 'true' and 'false'. Default value: 'false'.

ensure

Specifies whether the destination file should exist. Setting to 'absent' tells Puppet to delete the destination file if it exists, and negates the effect of any other parameters. Valid options: 'present' and 'absent'. Default value: 'present'.

ensure_newline

Specifies whether to add a line break at the end of each fragment that doesn't already end in one. Valid options: 'true' and 'false'. Default value: 'false'.

force

Deprecated as of concat v2.0.0. Has no effect.

group

Specifies a permissions group for the destination file. Valid options: a string containing a group name. Default value: undefined.

mode

Specifies the permissions mode of the destination file. Valid options: a string containing a permission mode value in octal notation. Default value: '0644'.

order

Specifies a method for sorting your fragments by name within the destination file. Valid options: 'alpha' (e.g., '1, 10, 2') or 'numeric' (e.g., '1, 2, 10'). Default value: 'alpha'.

You can override this setting for individual fragments by adjusting the order parameter in their concat::fragment declarations.

owner

Specifies the owner of the destination file. Valid options: a string containing a username. Default value: undefined.

path

Specifies a destination file for the combined fragments. Valid options: a string containing an absolute path. Default value: the title of your declared resource.

replace

Specifies whether to overwrite the destination file if it already exists. Valid options: 'true' and 'false'. Default value: 'true'.

show_diff

Specifies whether to set the show_diff parameter for the file resource. Useful for hiding secrets stored in hiera from insecure reporting methods. Valid options: 'true'.

validate_cmd

Specifies a validation command to apply to the destination file. Requires Puppet version 3.5 or newer. Valid options: a string to be passed to a file resource. Default value: undefined.

warn

Specifies whether to add a header message at the top of the destination file. Valid options: the booleans 'true' and 'false', or a string to serve as the header. Default value: 'false'.

If you set 'warn' to 'true', concat adds the following line with an order of 0:

# This file is managed by Puppet. DO NOT EDIT.

Before 2.0.0, this parameter would add a newline at the end of the warn message. To improve flexibilty, this was removed. Please add it explicitly if you need it.

selinux_ignore_defaults

See the file type's selinux_ignore_defaults documentention.

selrange

See the file type's selrange documentention.

selrole

See the file type's selrole documentention.

seltype

See the file type's seltype documentention.

seluser

See the file type's seluser documentention.

Define: concat::fragment

Except where noted, all the below parameters are optional.

content

Supplies the content of the fragment. Note: You must supply either a content parameter or a source parameter. Valid options: a string. Default value: undef.

ensure

Deprecated as of concat v2.0.0. Has no effect.

order

Reorders your fragments within the destination file. Fragments that share the same order number are ordered by name. Valid options: a string (recommended) or an integer. Default value: '10'.

source

Specifies a file to read into the content of the fragment. Note: You must supply either a content parameter or a source parameter. Valid options: a string or an array, containing one or more Puppet URLs. Default value: undefined.

target

Required. Specifies the destination file of the fragment. Valid options: a string containing the path or title of the parent concat resource.

Type: concat_file

backup

Specifies whether (and how) to back up the destination file before overwriting it. Your value gets passed on to Puppet's native file resource for execution. Valid options: 'true', 'false', or a string representing either a target filebucket or a filename extension beginning with ".". Default value: 'puppet'.

ensure

Specifies whether the destination file should exist. Setting to 'absent' tells Puppet to delete the destination file if it exists, and negates the effect of any other parameters. Valid options: 'present' and 'absent'. Default value: 'present'.

ensure_newline

Specifies whether to add a line break at the end of each fragment that doesn't already end in one. Valid options: 'true' and 'false'. Default value: 'false'.

group

Specifies a permissions group for the destination file. Valid options: a string containing a group name. Default value: undefined.

mode

Specifies the permissions mode of the destination file. Valid options: a string containing a permission mode value in octal notation. Default value: '0644'.

order

Specifies a method for sorting your fragments by name within the destination file. Valid options: 'alpha' (e.g., '1, 10, 2') or 'numeric' (e.g., '1, 2, 10'). Default value: 'numeric'.

You can override this setting for individual fragments by adjusting the order parameter in their concat::fragment declarations.

owner

Specifies the owner of the destination file. Valid options: a string containing a username. Default value: undefined.

path

Specifies a destination file for the combined fragments. Valid options: a string containing an absolute path. Default value: the title of your declared resource.

replace

Specifies whether to overwrite the destination file if it already exists. Valid options: 'true' and 'false'. Default value: 'true'.

tag

Required. Specifies a unique tag reference to collect all concat_fragments with the same tag.

##### validate_cmd

Specifies a validation command to apply to the destination file. Requires Puppet version 3.5 or newer. Valid options: a string to be passed to a file resource. Default value: undefined.

Type: concat_fragment

content

Supplies the content of the fragment. Note: You must supply either a content parameter or a source parameter. Valid options: a string. Default value: undef.

order

Reorders your fragments within the destination file. Fragments that share the same order number are ordered by name. Valid options: a string (recommended) or an integer. Default value: '10'.

source

Specifies a file to read into the content of the fragment. Note: You must supply either a content parameter or a source parameter. Valid options: a string or an array, containing one or more Puppet URLs. Default value: undefined.

tag

Required. Specifies a unique tag to be used by concat_file to reference and collect content.

target

Required. Specifies the destination file of the fragment. Valid options: a string containing the path or title of the parent concat_file resource.

Removed functionality

The following functionality existed in previous versions of the concat module, but was removed in version 2.0.0:

Parameters removed from concat::fragment:

• gnu
• backup
• group
• mode
• owner

The concat::setup class has also been removed.

Prior to concat version 2.0.0, if you set the warn parameter to a string value of 'true', 'false', 'yes', 'no', 'on', or 'off', the module translated the string to the corresponding boolean value. In concat version 2.0.0 and newer, the warn_header parameter treats those values the same as other strings and uses them as the content of your header message. To avoid that, pass the 'true' and 'false' values as booleans instead of strings.

Limitations

This module has been tested on all PE-supported platforms, and no issues have been identified.

Development

Puppet modules on the Puppet Forge are open projects, and community contributions are essential for keeping them great. We can't access the huge number of platforms and myriad of hardware, software, and deployment configurations that Puppet is intended to serve.

We want to keep it as easy as possible to contribute changes so that our modules work in your environment. There are a few guidelines that we need contributors to follow so that we can have a chance of keeping on top of things.

For more information, see our module contribution guide.

Contributors

Richard Pijnenburg (@Richardp82)

Joshua Hoblitt (@jhoblitt)

More contributors.

Supported Release 2.2.1

Summary

This is a backwards compatible bugfix release.

Bugfixes

• (MODULES-4350) Makes :path the namevar for concat_file
• (MODULES-4351) Prevents the :order parameter from accepting arbitrary values in concat_file
• (MODULES-4352) Restricts the :replace parameter to values accepted by file
• (MODULES-4474) Drops auto requirement of fragments
• (MODULES-3900) Improves error messages in concat::fragment
• Uses the whole fragment title when sorting

Supported Release 2.2.0

Summary

This release includes support for Debian 8 and Ubuntu 16.04 in addition to numerous bugfixes.

Features

• Adds Debian 8 support
• Adds Ubuntu 16.04 support

Bugfixes

• Fixes the stdlib lower dependency.
• (MODULES-3027) Fixes escaping the '*' character in tag creation.
• (MODULES-3097) Fixes fragment sorting by alpha
• Correctly propagates 'validate_cmd' parameter to generated file resource
• Correctly escapes disallowed characters in fragment tag creation
• (MODULES-3332) Correct the target path validation
• (MODULES-3463) Properly passes metaparams to generated resource

Supported Release 2.1.0

Summary

This is a re-release of concat as a resource type. This release also includes new features and bugfixes on top of the previously YANKED 2.0.1 release.

Features

• Adds the show_diff property.
• Adds the selinux related file params.
• Allows integer UID/GID values to be passed into $owner and $group

Bugfixes

• Adds a workaround to PUP-1963: generated resources never receiving dependency edges.
• Fixes occassional failure to find directory environment.

Supported Release 1.2.5

Summary

Small release for support of newer PE versions. This increments the version of PE in the metadata.json file.

2015-07-21 - Supported Release 1.2.4

Summary

This release includes some ruby path and lint fixes.

Bugfixes

• Use correct ruby path with PE and AIO
• Lint fixes
• Use correct ruby path on FreeBSD
• Test fixes

2015-06-02 - Supported Release 2.0.1 [YANKED]

Summary

This is a bugfix release.

Bugfixes

• Fixes dependency graphing with concurrent modification of the same file.
• Fixes handling fragment target.
• Fixes the defaulted force behavior to handle empty concats correctly.

2015-06-02 - Supported Release 1.2.3

Summary

This release includes a README fix to document correct behavior of fragment target parameter.

Bugfixes

• README Fix to correctly document how a fragment $target param should work.

2015-05-12 - Supported Release 2.0.0 [YANKED]

Summary

This is a major release. Includes re-implementation of concat to use native Type and Providers, resulting in significantly improved performance and testability. Also includes a bugfix to alpha ordering of fragments.

Features

• Re-implementation of concat to use native Type and Providers.

Bugfixes

• Fixes a bug in alpha ordering of fragments.

2015-05-12 - Supported Release 1.2.2

Summary

This release includes a bugfix.

Bugfixes

• Fixes a bug introduced by MODULES-1700, in handling default retrieval of fragment backup parameter.

2015-04-14 - Supported Release 1.2.1

Summary

This release includes bugfixes, test improvements, and a rewritten README.

Bugfixes

• Verifies existence of $is_pe before using it.
• Adds validation for $order param to not allow restricted characters.
• Sets the group id on Fragments for versions of Facter that contain the $gid fact.
• Sets the script group to 0 if the script is owned by root.
• Explicitly sets script and concat directories to the same owner and group.
• Re-adds support for fragment backup, so that static compiler can work with filebucket (MODULES-1700).

2015-02-17 - Supported Release 1.2.0

Summary

This release includes a number of bugfixes and adds support for running a validation command when using puppet >= 3.5.0.

Features

• Support running a validation command for Puppet >= 3.5.0

Bugfixes

• Reset poisoned defaults from Exec
• Use concatfragments.rb on AIX since it doesn't support print0
• Make sure ruby is in the path for PE (MODULES-1456)
• Fix missing method for check_is_owned_by for windows (MODULES-1764)
• Fix sort by numeric

2014-10-28 - Supported Release 1.1.2

Summary

This release includes bugfixes and test improvements. The module was tested against SLES10 and SLES12 and found to work against those platforms with no module improvements. Metadata was updated to include those as supported platforms.

Bugfixes

• newline didn't work for Windows and Solaris. This has been fixed.
• Install certs on Windows for acceptance tests
• Update tests to work with strict variables (no module updates were required)
• Update tests to work on Windows
• Fix typo in CHANGELOG.md

2014-09-10 - Supported Release 1.1.1

Summary

This is a bugfix release, and the first supported release of the 1.1.x series.

Bugfixes

• Make the $order parameter default to a string and be validated as an integer or a string
• Use the ruby script on Solaris to not break Sol10 support
• Add quotes to the ruby script location for Windows
• Fix typos in README.md
• Make regex in concat::setup case-insensitive to make it work on Windows
• Make sure concat fragments are always replaced
• Fix validation to allow $backup to be a boolean
• Remove dependency on stdlib 4.x
• Fix for lack of idempotency with ensure => 'absent'
• Fix tests and spec_helper
• Synchronized files for more consistency across modules via modulesync

2014-05-14 - Release 1.1.0

Summary

This release is primarily a bugfix release since 1.1.0-rc1.

Features

• Improved testing, with tests moved to beaker

Bugfixes

• No longer attempts to set fragment owner and mode on Windows
• Fix numeric sorting
• Fix incorrect quoting
• Fix newlines

2014-01-03 - Release 1.1.0-rc1

Summary

This release of concat was 90% written by Joshua Hoblitt, and the module team would like to thank him for the huge amount of work he put into this release.

This module deprecates a bunch of old parameters and usage patterns, modernizes much of the manifest code, simplifies a whole bunch of logic and makes improvements to almost all parts of the module.

The other major feature is windows support, courtesy of luisfdez, with an alternative version of the concat bash script in ruby. We've attempted to ensure that there are no backwards incompatible changes, all users of 1.0.0 should be able to use 1.1.0 without any failures, but you may find deprecation warnings and we'll be aggressively moving for a 2.0 to remove those too.

For further information on deprecations, please read: https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-concat/blob/master/README.md#api-deprecations

Removed

• Puppet 0.24 support.
• Filebucket backup of all file resources except the target concatenated file.
• Default owner/user/group values.
• Purging of long unused /usr/local/bin/concatfragments.sh

Features

• Windows support via a ruby version of the concat bash script.
• Huge amount of acceptance testing work added.
• Documentation (README) completely rewritten.
• New parameters in concat:
• ensure: Controls if the file should be present/absent at all.
• Remove requirement to include concat::setup in manifests.
• Made gnu parameter deprecated.
• Added parameter validation.

Bugfixes

• Ensure concat::setup runs before concat::fragment in all cases.
• Pluginsync references updated for modern Puppet.
• Fix incorrect group parameter.
• Use $owner instead of $id to avoid confusion with $::id
• Compatibility fixes for Puppet 2.7/ruby 1.8.7
• Use LC_ALL=C instead of LANG=C
• Always exec the concatfragments script as root when running as root.
• Syntax and other cleanup changes.

2014-06-25 - Supported Release 1.0.4

Summary

This release has test fixes.

Features

• Added test support for OSX.

Bugfixes

Known bugs

• Not supported on Windows.

2014-06-04 - Release 1.0.3

Summary

This release adds compatibility for PE3.3 and fixes tests.

Features

• Added test support for Ubuntu Trusty.

Bugfixes

Known bugs

*Not supported on Windows.

2014-03-04 - Supported Release 1.0.2

Summary

This is a supported release. No functional changes were made from 1.0.1.

Features

• Huge amount of tests backported from 1.1.
• Documentation rewrite.

Bugfixes

Known Bugs

• Not supported on Windows.

2014-02-12 - 1.0.1

Summary

Minor bugfixes for sorting of fragments and ordering of resources.

Bugfixes

• LANG => C replaced with LC_ALL => C to reduce spurious recreation of fragments.
• Corrected pluginsync documentation.
• Ensure concat::setup always runs before fragments.

2013-08-09 - 1.0.0

Summary

Many new features and bugfixes in this release, and if you're a heavy concat user you should test carefully before upgrading. The features should all be backwards compatible but only light testing has been done from our side before this release.

Features

• New parameters in concat:
• replace: specify if concat should replace existing files.
• ensure_newline: controls if fragments should contain a newline at the end.
• Improved README documentation.
• Add rspec:system tests (rake spec:system to test concat)

Bugfixes

• Gracefully handle \n in a fragment resource name.
• Adding more helpful message for 'pluginsync = true'
• Allow passing source and content directly to file resource, rather than defining resource defaults.
• Added -r flag to read so that filenames with \ will be read correctly.
• sort always uses LANG=C.
• Allow WARNMSG to contain/start with '#'.
• Replace while-read pattern with for-do in order to support Solaris.

CHANGELOG:

• 2010/02/19 - initial release
• 2010/03/12 - add support for 0.24.8 and newer

         - make the location of sort configurable
         - add the ability to add shell comment based warnings to
           top of files
         - add the ablity to create empty files
  

• 2010/04/05 - fix parsing of WARN and change code style to match rest of the code

         - Better and safer boolean handling for warn and force
         - Don't use hard coded paths in the shell script, set PATH
           top of the script
         - Use file{} to copy the result and make all fragments owned
           by root.  This means we can chnage the ownership/group of the
           resulting file at any time.
         - You can specify ensure => "/some/other/file" in concat::fragment
           to include the contents of a symlink into the final file.
  

• 2010/04/16 - Add more cleaning of the fragment name - removing / from the $name
• 2010/05/22 - Improve documentation and show the use of ensure =>
• 2010/07/14 - Add support for setting the filebucket behavior of files
• 2010/10/04 - Make the warning message configurable
• 2010/12/03 - Add flags to make concat work better on Solaris - thanks Jonathan Boyett
• 2011/02/03 - Make the shell script more portable and add a config option for root group
• 2011/06/21 - Make base dir root readable only for security
• 2011/06/23 - Set base directory using a fact instead of hardcoding it
• 2011/06/23 - Support operating as non privileged user
• 2011/06/23 - Support dash instead of bash or sh
• 2011/07/11 - Better solaris support
• 2011/12/05 - Use fully qualified variables
• 2011/12/13 - Improve Nexenta support
• 2012/04/11 - Do not use any GNU specific extensions in the shell script
• 2012/03/24 - Comply to community style guides
• 2012/05/23 - Better errors when basedir isnt set
• 2012/05/31 - Add spec tests
• 2012/07/11 - Include concat::setup in concat improving UX
• 2012/08/14 - Puppet Lint improvements
• 2012/08/30 - The target path can be different from the $name
• 2012/08/30 - More Puppet Lint cleanup
• 2012/09/04 - RELEASE 0.2.0
• 2012/12/12 - Added (file) $replace parameter to concat