concat

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Module Description - What the module does and why it is useful
   • Beginning with concat
3. Usage - Configuration options and additional functionality
4. Reference - An under-the-hood peek at what the module is doing and how
   • Removed functionality
5. Limitations - OS compatibility, etc.
6. 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

See REFERENCE.md

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.

For an extensive list of supported operating systems, see metadata.json

Development

Acceptance tests for this module leverage puppet_litmus. To run the acceptance tests follow the instructions here. You can also find a tutorial and walkthrough of using Litmus and the PDK on YouTube.

If you run into an issue with this module, or if you would like to request a feature, please file a ticket. Every Monday the Puppet IA Content Team has office hours in the Puppet Community Slack, alternating between an EMEA friendly time (1300 UTC) and an Americas friendly time (0900 Pacific, 1700 UTC).

If you have problems getting this module up and running, please contact Support.

If you submit a change to this module, be sure to regenerate the reference documentation as follows:

puppet strings generate --format markdown --out REFERENCE.md

Contributors

Richard Pijnenburg (@Richardp82)

Joshua Hoblitt (@jhoblitt)

More contributors.