Puppet

This is not because you have ensure => absent, it’s because you haven’t specified a command.

It’s reasonable to expect that you could delete a resource without specifying the command, so this is still a bug, but it’s quite different from saying that you can’t delete cron resources.

I’m delaying this until someone feels like working on it.

I just got bit by this bug in 0.25.1

Can you explain how a bug in cron job deletion caused multiple crontabs to be installed? I’m a bit confused.

I’ve also hit this bug. I actually had it duplicate the crontabs 2-3 times, in its entirety. So all 6 cronjobs existed, in the same chunk 3 times.

Likewise, I’ve hit this.

Seemed to run fine for a while with the following:

class someclass {
    # TODO: Delete this later.
    crontab { "something":
        ensure => absent,
    }
}

Only upon changing environment did it start throwing the error:

err: Could not prefetch cron provider 'crontab': No command, somehow at [..]

As reported by two of the other commentators, a side effect was that crontab resources from outside of someclass were incorrectly identified as being absent and thus created duplicates.

I also believe the issue should be re prioritized. I can demonstrate the creation of infinite* duplicate cron resources.

Duplicate cron entries are created for each resource which follows the “invalid” resource in the catalog. Starting with our last crontab which contains an unmanaged resource:

# HEADER: This file was autogenerated at Thu Feb 10 00:59:17 -0800 2011 by puppet.
# HEADER: While it can still be managed manually, it is definitely not recommended.
# HEADER: Note particularly that the comments starting with 'Puppet Name' should
# HEADER: not be deleted, as doing so could cause duplicate cron jobs.
# Puppet Name: first
* * * * * true first

Attempt to apply a catalog with an “invalid” resource followed by a valid resource

# /tmp/cron_dupe.pp
cron { "second": ensure => 'absent';
       "third": command => 'true third' }

tmp donavanm$ sudo puppet apply /tmp/cron_dupe.pp 
err: Could not prefetch cron provider 'crontab': No command, somehow at /tmp/cron_dupe.pp:2
notice: /Stage[main]//Cron[third]/ensure: created
tmp donavanm$ sudo puppet apply /tmp/cron_dupe.pp 
err: Could not prefetch cron provider 'crontab': No command, somehow at /tmp/cron_dupe.pp:2
notice: /Stage[main]//Cron[third]/ensure: created
tmp donavanm$ sudo puppet apply /tmp/cron_dupe.pp 
err: Could not prefetch cron provider 'crontab': No command, somehow at /tmp/cron_dupe.pp:2
notice: /Stage[main]//Cron[third]/ensure: created

And verify duplicate cron entries:

mbp:tmp donavanm$ sudo crontab -l
# HEADER: This file was autogenerated at Thu Feb 10 01:41:12 -0800 2011 by puppet.
# HEADER: While it can still be managed manually, it is definitely not recommended.
# HEADER: Note particularly that the comments starting with 'Puppet Name' should
# HEADER: not be deleted, as doing so could cause duplicate cron jobs.
# Puppet Name: first
* * * * * true first
# Puppet Name: third
* * * * * true third
# Puppet Name: third
* * * * * true third
# Puppet Name: third
* * * * * true third

* Or, more than I care to count.

We may need to make some backwards-incompatible changes here.

We’re inconsistent about our reliance upon the “Puppet Name:” line it seems.

Digging more.