Puppet - Puppet Labs

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# Running Puppet on Gentoo

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This page is for the documentation of any caveats or solutions

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related to running Puppet under Gentoo.

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## Installation

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Installation is simple, Puppet is in the portage tree and can be

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installed with emerge. Puppet is still marked unstable so you will

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need to add it to /etc/portage/package.keywords. As of June 2008,

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Puppet 0.24 has been marked as stable in the tree.

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The Puppet portage provider depends on information from a package

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query tool:eix which needs to be initialized before it is usable.

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The Puppet ebuild will warn you about this. I'd say provider

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support is well rounded although lacking in the specific strengths

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of Gentoo (slots and useflags).

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    # eix puppet

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    * app-admin/puppet

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         Available versions: 0.24.4 ~0.24.7-r1 {emacs ldap rrdtool vim-syntax}

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         Homepage:           http://reductivelabs.com/projects/puppet/index.html

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         Description:        A system automation and configuration management software

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AFAIK there is no support (yet) for any of the alternative package

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managers.

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## Caveats

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There's a couple of things to look out for when running puppet on

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gentoo

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-   **Slots**:

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    Gentoo has the notion of slots, which allows you to install the

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    same lib with different versions on a system. Puppet has problems

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    with that because it uses the name of a package as an unique

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    identifier. This doesn't work for obvious reasons

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-   **USE-flags**:

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    Gentoo has USE-flags which enable or disable functionality in a

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    package at compile aka install time. The package version does not

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    change, but the package functionality might change drastically. The

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    Puppet Gentoo provider has no support for use-flags and puppet thus

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    cannot upgrade or reinstall on a use-flag change. I'm unaware of a

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    elegant way of triggering a reinstall by puppet when change flags.

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-   **revdep-rebuild**

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    In some cases you need to run revdep-rebuild after an upgrade of a

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    package, you will need to script this, Puppet nor Gentoo can detect

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    this for you Careless upgrading (with Puppet) can trigger huge

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    problems. (for example do an incompatible upgrade of openssl and

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    see what fails and whether or not you can still login). With the

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    upcoming portage-2.2 this problem should be resolved, as it

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    provides now the package-set *@preserved-rebuild*.

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-   **eix-update**

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    The Puppet provider uses eix to query information about packages.

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    eix uses a database for fast lookups. Keeping Puppet informed of

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    possible upgrades and installed packages needs regular runs of

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    eix-update.

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## Bug Resolutions

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-   "ensure => latest" seems to force recompile of packages, even

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    when current

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    -   This is caused by a bug in eix which, though passed --no-color

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        as an option, renders ANSI color codes in the output. To resolve,

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        upgrade eix to a version >= 0.9.4.

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    -   AFAIK this still doesn't solve the entire problem, in some

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        cases, particularly with slots involved eix will output multiple

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        possible package versions confusing puppet into recompiling every

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run

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    -   This could also be caused by resource clashing as discussed

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        here ImprovedResourceIdentification?. Specifying packages like the

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        following solved an issue I was facing with repeated upgrading of

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        dev-db/mysql (v5.0.44) because puppet thought the currently

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        installed MySQL was v5.0 (virtual/mysql 5.0):

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            package { "dev-db/mysql":

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                name => "mysql",

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                category => "dev-db",

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                ensure => latest

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## Helpful Links

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There is an introductory discussion about running Puppet on Gentoo

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[here](http://log.onthebrink.de/2008/05/using-puppet-on-gentoo.html).