Re: convergent principle and editfile issue

[Mark . Burgess]

There is no problem is using emptyentirefileplease and reconstructing this
from scratch. Cfengine will only regenerate the file if the content that you
describe differs from the actual content on the disk. The file will not be
rewritten if no change is made.


Mark

On 22 Jul, Zeev Fisher wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to discuss again the concept of  convergent  and editfiles.
> 
>  From earlier discussion:
> 
> "The real reason for me using editfiles over copy for managing
> configuration is that sometimes the values being set differ per machine,
> which makes a single file less useful.  I certainly use copy for every
> file that I want identical across all machines, but these files are
> rarely configuration files.
> I also like to make the minimum amount of change to any configuration
> file, and I want any automatic edits to respect formatting changes that
> a human makes."
> 
> I totally agree with this and i can't understand how such great software like 
> cfengine which is
> based on the principle of convergent , doesn't have editfiles ability to 
> check if certain file
> match certain structure ( which is dynamic according to the machine it runs 
> on but the template is
> fixed)
> 
> For example , i'm trying to find a way which will make sure that only the 
> following 2 lines will
> appear in my hosts.equiv file :
> 
> +@examplenetgroup
> examplehost
> 
> The netgroup name is constant but the hostname is the hostname of the 
> machine itself so i can't use copy.
> 
> With all current editfiles feature , except of creating from scratch 
> every time the file with emptyentirefileplease and inserts , i can't 
> make sure that if someone added there host , it will be removed next 
> time cfengine run.
> 
> I will be happy to hear how to do this if it's possible.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Zeev
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 



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