How to update Puppet ini_setting or ini_subsetting resource without section header in conf file? - automation

Question

I wonder if someone can help me with my conf file problem. I need to get the output like below but I get problems in using the inifile. I have put below my code and testing output. My service won't start because of the '[]'. Your comments and ideas are highly appreciated. Thanks!
Expected output
cat /etc/service.conf
info something something...
without section header
setting1=value1
Testings
testscript1.pp
ini_setting {'setx':
ensure => present,
path => '/etc/service.conf',
key_val_separator => '=',
setting => 'setting1',
value => 'value1',
}
output of testscript1.pp
cat /etc/service.conf
info something something...
[setx]
setting1=value1
testscript2.pp
$defaults = {
ensure => present,
path => '/etc/service.conf',
key_val_separator => '=',
}
$settings = {
' ' => {
'setting1' => 'value1',
}
}
create_ini_settings($settings,$defaults)
output of testscript2.pp
cat /etc/service.conf
info something something...
[ ]
setting1=value1
Since I really wanted to delete the [] character because it's causing error during service restart, I used section_prefix => '#',. The first puppet agent run is smooth and working. Problem now is if puppet agent runs on its frequency time (like let's say every hour), it will auto-append details in conf file due to lack of section header. I decided to use ini_subsetting but I'm getting errors with it.
testscript3.pp
ini_subsetting {'subset':
ensure => present,
section => '',
key_val_separator => '=',
path => '/etc/service.conf',
setting => 'setting1',
subsetting => '',
value => 'value1',
}
output of testscript3.pp
Error: Failed to apply catalog: Parameter path failed on Ini_subsetting[subset]: File paths must be fully qualified, not '/etc/service.conf'.
Any suggestions or advises are highly appreciated.
Thank you.

Answer 1

If the file you are managing does not have section markers of some kind, then it is not an INI file, not even in the generalized sense that the puppetlabs/inifile module supports. To the best of my knowledge, you'll need to choose a different approach to managing the file.
You could consider templating the whole file, or writing a custom type and provider for it, but before going to so much trouble, you should consider whether a good old file_line resource from puppetlabs/stdlib would be adequate for your needs.

Answer 2

Have you tried your testscript1.pp with section => ''?
It would look like this:
ini_setting {'setx':
ensure => present,
path => '/etc/service.conf',
key_val_separator => '=',
section => '',
setting => 'setting1',
value => 'value1',
}
And the output would be:
cat /etc/service.conf
info something something...
setting1=value1
Or you could try to use force_new_section_creation => false, as it is true by default and forces the creation of a section, as stated in the module’s reference.
As for your 3rd example, it probably fails because of the blank subsetting parameter. The ini_subsetting resource type requires both setting and subsetting parameters to work.