Passing a yaml array containing package data to puppet through Hiera - automation

Question

puppet version: 4.9.4
hiera version: 3.3.1
What i am trying to do is have httpd reload when a new version of package-x/y is installed, and it doesn't seem like the array from Hiera is being passed correctly.
for my httpd.pp file, I have:
class service::common::httpd (
$service_state = undef, # undef = unmanaged
$service_run_at_boot = undef,
$packages = undef
) {
service { 'httpd':
ensure => $service_state,
enable => $service_run_at_boot,
subscribe => $packages,
restart => "/usr/sbin/apachectl graceful"
}
}
and in the yaml file for hiera, I have:
service::common::httpd::packages: [Package['package-x'],Package['package-y']]
running puppet with this gives the error
Error: Evaluation Error: Error while evaluating a Function Call, Lookup of key 'allow_virtual_packages' failed: Unable to parse (/root/repos/puppet-config/data/nodes/<location of yaml file>): did not find expected ',' or ']' while parsing a flow sequence
also saying that its missing a comma between flow collection entries. I've tried many different combinations of spaces and commas as well..
I have also tried including the packages inside the class with an include statement.
What am i doing wrong?

Answer 1

The yamllint utility is quite useful for analysing Puppet Hiera YAML files. When I tried it on your file I got:
▶ yamllint spec/fixtures/hiera/data/common.yaml
spec/fixtures/hiera/data/common.yaml
2:25 error syntax error: expected ',' or ']', but got '['
2:39 error too few spaces after comma (commas)
The syntax error there reveals that the file is simply invalid YAML.
But how to fix it?
Confusingly, a line in a Puppet manifest like:
subscribe => [Package['package-x'], Package['package-y']]
When compiled into a JSON Puppet catalog becomes:
"subscribe": ["Package[package-x]", "Package[package-y]"]
And you can place the same JSON string in the YAML file to make valid YAML like this:
service::common::httpd::packages: ["Package[package-x]", "Package[package-y]"]
You can also use single quotes in the YAML i.e.
service::common::httpd::packages: ['Package[package-x]', 'Package[package-y]']
More info on how to compile the Puppet catalog in my blog post here.

Answer 2

quotes.
hiera doesn't know what Package is. just quote it, since its a string.
service::common::httpd::packages: [ "Package['package-x']",
"Package['package-y']" ]
works perfectly.
or you can just change [ "Package['package-x']", "Package['package-y']" ] to [ 'package-x', 'package-y' ]
works flawlessly. see below.
host01.yaml
beats::packetbeat::packages: [ acl, htop ]
packetbeat.pp
class beats::packetbeat (
$packages = undef
) {
package {
"packetbeat":
ensure => "$version",
subscribe => Package[$packages],
;
}
}
Notice: /Stage[main]/Beats::Packetbeat/Package[acl]/ensure:
current_value 'absent', should be '2.2.51-14.el7' (noop)
Notice: /Stage[main]/Beats::Packetbeat/Package[packetbeat]: Would have
triggered 'refresh' from 1 event
Notice: /Stage[main]/Beats::Packetbeat/Service[packetbeat]: Would have
triggered 'refresh' from 2 events
Notice: Class[Beats::Packetbeat]: Would have triggered 'refresh' from
3 events