Facter 3.X questions

[Kurt Jaeger]

Hi!

> > Can you explain the state of factor for us ? We have 3.1.3 in
> > the ports, and upstream is @3.1.8. Have you tried to
> > provide a patch to the ports to get the port up2date ?
> 
> Not sure it would need a patch, I think just pulling down
> the latest tag from git should be enough.

So a patch that provides all changes to change the port
from 3.1.3 to 3.1.8, submitted via bugs.freebsd.org would
be helpful to get the port updated.

> > Then: What are those 'facts' ? Are they modules for facter to
> > collect specific info on a system etc ? Are they part of facter itself
> > or do you want to provide seperate ports for this ? What kind of facts are
> > generally available ?
> 
> Facter is a tool to get information from a system, such
> as amount of RAM, CPUs, mounts, size of partitions etc. Usually for
> usage with Puppet. The missing facts are part of facter itself,
> they just got missed when the upgrade happened because we dont
> have internal infra for testing Facter, it's mainly in the hands of
> FreeBSD puppet users to log issues when stuff breaks.

Ok.

> > The WWW in pkg-descr is https://puppetlabs.com/facter, which
> > no longer works -- what would be the correct link ?
> 
> Yeah, there was a site re-design recently. I guess the new link
> would probably be the main docs page: https://docs.puppet.com/facter/
> 
> Would that be something that needs a patch? I can see if I can
> figure out how to submit for that :)

Yes. The update can include all changes rolled in one set of patches,
that's preferred.

> > How/when should facter replace rubygem-facter in the ports tree ?
> > Right now puppet depends on rubygem-facter, which is only at 2.4.4 ?
> > Upstream is at 2.4.6
> 
> I guess the best time to replace would be when all the missing facts are
> restored.

Ok.

> I'm making ok progress on it right now, we have a hackathon soon so I might
> be able to get it completely across the line then.
> 
> What's the policy of when ports get removed? Some people prefer
> to use the older Facter as it's Ruby based, or they're not reading to
> make the major version jump, so it might be best to keep both?

The policy is: ports get removed if they are broken for a prolonged
amount of time (6+ month) and no PRs/fixes available.

Broken means: They do no longer build.

> > For this, we probably need more understanding of facter 8-} Any links
> > that you can share that bring us up to speed ?
> 
> Hah, it's not super clear how to get started in it. I'd recommend reading
> the Facter README to get up to speed with how to build:
> 
> https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter/blob/master/README.md

Thanks. Does facter provide some sort of inventory, like
'list all facts available' feature ?

Does facter provide some sort of testing ?

There's a

make test

target in the ports tree, so that would help to identify the missing
pieces.

> > Submit PRs requesting maintainer, and if they come with
> > patches that bring the ports up2date, you're maintainer
> > if the previous maintainer agrees.
> 
> Just to make sure, I actually work at Puppet, it's not a conflict of
> interest or anything to become a Facter maintainer right?

Working @upstream is no problem, if it helps getting the patches
coming 8-)

-- 
pi at opsec.eu            +49 171 3101372                         4 years to go !