Re: Puzzler: Can cfengine replace make?

[Jon Stearley]

> area which is referenced by a cfengine "copy" section.  This way the
> only changes made on target hosts are for those where changes are
> necessary.

cfengine edits get clunky quickly imho.  i do as little editing via
cfengine as possible, opting for copies when possible.  i've not
personally used tetre2, but its Assemble function may be appropriate
here, see http://isg.ee.ethz.ch/tools/tetre2/META.html.


>         # you must change both (matching!) test blocks to have it work
>         BeginGroupIfNoMatch "# cfengine messed with this 2001/07/20"
>                 EmptyEntireFilePlease

it sounds like you maybe already do/understand this, but just in case:
particularly if you are emptying the whole file, you might consider
using copy with DefaultCopyType = ( byte ), and utilizing the
define=whatever mechanism instead.  this way the target file is copied
(replaced) when it is bytewise different from the source, and cfengine
will utilize the defined class in taking further actions (ie- edit,
then later in shellcommands or whatever, utilize the whatever class).
using DefaultCopyType = ( mtime ) didn't work for me because of the
way i checkout from my GoldServer.  defines can happen as a result of
many actions, not just copies.  this can make getting actionsequence
just right tricky; my impression is that the whole actionsequence
thing may be significantly reviewed/reworked in cfengine2.

your usage may vary.  my 2c.

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| Jon Stearley                  (505) 845-7571  (FAX 844-2067) |
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