Making quick edits to config files

When you need to have Puppet change a particular setting in a config file, it's common to simply deploy the whole file with Puppet. This isn't always possible, though, especially if it's a file that several different parts of your Puppet manifest may need to modify.

What would be useful is a simple recipe to add a line to a config file if it's not already present, for example, adding a module name to /etc/modules to tell the kernel to load that module at boot. There are several ways to do this; the simplest is to use the file_line type provided by the puppetlabs-stdlib module. In this example, we install the stdlib module and use this type to append a line to a text file.

Getting ready

Install the puppetlabs-stdlib module using puppet:

t@mylaptop ~ $ puppet module install puppetlabs-stdlib
Notice: Preparing to install into /home/thomas/.puppetlabs/etc/code/modules ...
Notice: Downloading from https://forgeapi.puppet.com ...
Notice: Installing -- do not interrupt...