puppet-alternatives

Manage Debian alternatives symlinks. This module is based on the module by Adrien Thebo ([email protected]) Added support for Red Hat Linux and derivatives.

The Red Hat version also has a type 'alternative' that supports adding/removing individual alternative paths and optional slave links.

This module should work on any Debian or Red Hat based distribution, or really any distribution that has a reasonable update-alternatives file.

Synopsis

Using puppet resource to inspect alternatives

root@master:~# puppet resource alternatives
alternatives { 'aptitude':
  path => '/usr/bin/aptitude-curses',
}
alternatives { 'awk':
  path => '/usr/bin/mawk',
}
alternatives { 'builtins.7.gz':
  path => '/usr/share/man/man7/bash-builtins.7.gz',
}
alternatives { 'c++':
  path => '/usr/bin/g++',
}
alternatives { 'c89':
  path => '/usr/bin/c89-gcc',
}
alternatives { 'c99':
  path => '/usr/bin/c99-gcc',
}
alternatives { 'cc':
  path => '/usr/bin/gcc',
}

---

Using puppet resource to update an alternative

root@master:~# puppet resource alternatives editor
alternatives { 'editor':
  path => '/bin/nano',
}
root@master:~# puppet resource alternatives editor path=/usr/bin/vim.tiny
notice: /Alternatives[editor]/path: path changed '/bin/nano' to '/usr/bin/vim.tiny'
alternatives { 'editor':
  path => '/usr/bin/vim.tiny',
}

---

Using the alternatives resource in a manifest:

class ruby::193 {

  package { 'ruby1.9.3':
    ensure => present,
  }

  # Will also update gem, irb, rdoc, rake, etc.
  alternatives { 'ruby':
    path    => '/usr/bin/ruby1.9.3',
    require => Package['ruby1.9.3'],
  }
}

# magic!
include ruby::193

---

Managing individual paths with the alternative type

This type handles individual entries in a file in /var/lib/alternatives. If you create an alternative for which there is no such file yet, it will be automatically created. If you remove the last alternative in a file, the file is automatically deleted.

The title of this resource is composite: : where name is a generic name of the alternative (e.g. 'editor') and path is an actual file on the file system (e.g. '/usr/bin/vim') The link attribute is normally /usr/bin/ (this is the default value) The default value for priority is '10'

After making modifications using this resource, it is possible that the alternative changes to manual mode. If this is not what you want, you can change it back to auto mode using the alternatives resource.

---

Examples:

alternative { 'test2:/usr/bin/vmstat':
  ensure   => present,
  link     => '/usr/bin/test2',
  priority => '2',
}

alternative { 'editor:/usr/bin/vim':
  ensure   => present,
}

---

With slave links: ( = hash or array of hashes)

alternative { 'editor:/usr/bin/vim':
  ensure => present,
  slave  => [{name => "t1", link => "/usr/bin/t1", path => "/usr/bin/xyz"},
             ...
            ],
}

---

Contact

• Source code: https://github.com/cegeka/puppet-alternatives
• Issue tracker: https://github.com/cegeka/puppet-alternatives/issues