Re: problem with size of embedded command in cfengine 2.1.14

[Ed Brown]

I was hoping that Phil D'Amore, who I believe has been developing this
part of the code, would weigh in here, perhaps with a patch, or an
explanation of the problem.  'action=install' is a huge step towarads
full integration of package management with cfengine, and it would be
just awesome to have it work well in most circumstances.    

In the meantime, if you're still interested in using a wrapper, contact
me offlist, and I'll send you what we use.  

-Ed  


On Fri, 2005-07-01 at 09:44, ERic Doutreleau wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I guess the problems is a problem of too many arguments.
> indeed the the yum command work perfectly with this parameter.
> 
> My guess is that it s a limitation of the install command.
> 
> I used to define some classes to install packages.
> but during the initial installation i have to launch yum as many times
> as the number of packages.
> 
> the nice thing with the action install is that yum is only launched
> once.
> then it would be nice if this limitation could be overtaken.
> 
> -Eric
> 
> Le jeudi 30 juin 2005 à 11:35 -0600, Ed Brown a écrit :
> > On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 04:35, Eric Doutreleau wrote:
> > ...
> > > is there somebody who successfully wrote a wrapper in oder to be able 
> > > to install software?
> > ...
> > > cfengine:d012-15:package install: cfengine:d012-15: Too many arguments
> > > in embedded script
> > > cfengine:d012-15:package install:
> > > cfengine:d012-15:/var/cfengine/inputs/cfsite.cf.fedora-4:Use a wrapper
> > 
> > We're using a wrapper (that is, an external script to install packages
> > (also with yum), rather than 'action=install') because we needed
> > something before Phil implemented 'action=install' (and because it
> > allowed some local site specific functions).  But I wonder what the
> > limitation actually is here, is there a fixed limit on the number of
> > packages that can be installed or on the length of the argument string? 
> > Is it in the 'packages:' code, or at a higher level in cfengine?  Is it
> > documented; can it be changed?  (Or could the problem be something else,
> > a parse error, maybe related to the line early on in the cfagent output:
> > cfengine:d012-15: Nothing scheduled for [packages.mozilla_acroread] (0/1
> > minutes elapsed)
> > The formatting of the rpm list in the cfengine output is interesting
> > too, like maybe newlines are being included?)
> > 
> > Our wrapper relies on definining classes for each needed rpm, which gets
> > messy fast.  If the problem really is 'too many arguments', i.e. rpms, a
> > better workaround than to abandon 'action=install' altogether (if it has
> > been working for you), or than calling an external script, might be to
> > put some subset of the needed rpms into an shellcommand action,
> > something like:
> > 
> > classes: 
> >    OracleClient = ( server1 )
> > shellcommands:
> >    OracleClient::
> >      "/usr/bin/yum install -y yada yada-lib yada-jdbc yada-etc"
> > 
> > Also, I don't see any output from yum in your snippet, so it doesn't
> > look like it's getting that far, but you might want to test the yum
> > install of the entire list from the commandline, just to be sure that
> > there aren't circular or unmet dependency problems being masked by these
> > other errors.
> > 
> > -Ed
> > 
>