[Puppet Users] pipes in command output

[John T. Guthrie]

Hello all,

While we can use generate() to get the output of a command into a puppet
manifest, it has limitations. In particular, no subshell is used to run
the command, so you can't use the pipe symbol, "|", to connect two
commands together. So how would one go about getting the output of
"command1 | command2" into a puppet variable in a manifest?

Thanks.

John Guthrie
***@limewire.com

[Jeff McCune]

Post by John T. Guthrie
Hello all,
While we can use generate() to get the output of a command into a puppet
manifest, it has limitations.  In particular, no subshell is used to run
the command, so you can't use the pipe symbol, "|", to connect two
commands together.  So how would one go about getting the output of
"command1 | command2" into a puppet variable in a manifest?

I use wrapper scripts for this. Then have generate() call the wrapper script.

#! /bin/bash
# script to be used for generate() function
set -e
set -u
command1 | command2

[John T. Guthrie]

Post by Jeff McCune

Post by John T. Guthrie
Hello all,
While we can use generate() to get the output of a command into a puppet
manifest, it has limitations. In particular, no subshell is used to run
the command, so you can't use the pipe symbol, "|", to connect two
commands together. So how would one go about getting the output of
"command1 | command2" into a puppet variable in a manifest?

I use wrapper scripts for this. Then have generate() call the wrapper script.
#! /bin/bash
# script to be used for generate() function
set -e
set -u
command1 | command2

I wish I had figured this out earlier. What also seems to work is the
following:

$my_variable = inline_template("<%= %x{command1 | command2} %>")

and this way, there is no need to distribute a file onto the
puppetmaster server. (I should note that I do give full path names to
both commands to be safe.)

Thank you very much for your help.

John Guthrie
***@limewire.com

[Jeff McCune]

Post by John T. Guthrie
Hello all,
While we can use generate() to get the output of a command into a puppet
manifest, it has limitations.  In particular, no subshell is used to run
the command, so you can't use the pipe symbol, "|", to connect two
commands together.  So how would one go about getting the output of
"command1 | command2" into a puppet variable in a manifest?

I use wrapper scripts for this.  Then have generate() call the wrapper script.
#! /bin/bash
# script to be used for generate() function
set -e
set -u
command1 | command2

I wish I had figured this out earlier.  What also seems to work is the
$my_variable = inline_template("<%= %x{command1 | command2} %>")

That's quite slick. Thanks for following up to the list with the
alternative solution to the problem.