[chef] Re: is there a smart way to tweak configurations file in chef? (or puppet, cfengine, or otherwise?)

[Adam Jacob <adam@opscode.com>]

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Thomas
Hartman<thomashartman1@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I have this scenario where I have a my.cnf ini file, and I want to
> make sure it has a certain value in a certain section. (Can't just
> append to the end of the file.)
>
> I solved this using the perl file, attached. Obviously this isn't a
> perfect solution though. If the value is already set, but set wrong,
> it won't work.
>
> The right way to do this would be to parse the ini file and do something 
> smart.
>
> I am just wondering if this kind of tweak is a solved problem, in
> chef, puppet, cfengine, or anywhere else.
>
> Thanks in advance for any advice!

Like AJ pointed out, there are multiple ways to attack this.  The
preferred method with Chef is to make a template of the file, and then
render the correct values.  We let you be very clever to accomplish
this - for example, resources can be re-opened later, and more
variables added to the context the template is rendered in.

t = resources(:template => "my.cnf")
t.variables[:some_value] = 15

Is one example.  This means you could iteratively build things up as you go.

Adam

-- 
Opscode, Inc.
Adam Jacob, CTO
T: (206) 508-7449 E: adam@opscode.com