In the past, several of my
Puppet modules have
been tightly coupled. A perfect example is
Apache and
Munin. When I
install Apache, I want munin graphs set up. As a result my apache class
has the following snippet in it:
munin::plugin "apache_accesses":
munin::plugin "apache_processes":
munin::plugin "apache_volume":
This should make sure that these three plugins are installed and that
munin-node is restarted to pick them up. The define was implemented like
this:
define munin::plugin (
$enable = true,
$plugin_name = false,
)
include munin::node
file "/etc/munin/plugins/$name":
ensure => $enable ?
true => $plugin_name ?
false => "/usr/share/munin/plugins/$name",
default => "/usr/share/munin/plugins/$plugin_name"
,
default => absent
,
links => manage,
require => Package["munin-node"],
notify => Service["munin-node"],
(Note: this is a slight simplification of the define). As you can
see, the define includes
munin::node, as it needs the definition of the
munin-node service and package. As a result of this, installing Apache
drags in munin-node on your server too. It would be much nicer if the
apache class only installed the munin plugins if you also install munin
on the server.
It turns out that is is possible, using
virtual
resources. Virtual resources allow you to define resources in one
place, but not make them happen unless you realise them. Using this, we
can make the file resource in the
munin::plugin virtual and realise it
in our
munin::node class. Our new
munin::plugin looks like:
define munin::plugin (
$enable = true,
$plugin_name = false,
)
# removed "include munin::node"
# Added @ in front of the resource to declare it as virtual
@file "/etc/munin/plugins/$name":
ensure => $enable ?
true => $plugin_name ?
false => "/usr/share/munin/plugins/$name",
default => "/usr/share/munin/plugins/$plugin_name"
,
default => absent
,
links => manage,
require => Package["munin-node"],
notify => Service["munin-node"],
tag => munin-plugin,
We add the following line to our
munin::node class:
File< tag == munin-plugin >
The odd syntax in the
munin::node class realises all the
virtual resources that match the filter, in this case, any that is
tagged
munin-plugin. We've had to define this tag ourself, as
the auto-generated tags don't seem to work. You'll also notice that
we've removed the
munin::node include from the
munin::plugin define, which means that we no longer install
munin-node just by using the plugin define. I've used a similar
technique for logcheck, so additional rules are not installed unless
I've installed logcheck. I'm sure there are several other places where I
can use it to reduce such tight coupling between classes.
DebConf 11 will be held in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Munich, Germany arrived on a close second and our bid, Quito, Ecuador, arrived last, allegedly because some points flipped over since DC 11 was meant to happen in Europe. So, after having three DebConfs hosted in America in the last four years, DebConf 11 will travel to Europe in 2011! Good news for all our fellow DDs and contributors over there.
The Banja Luka team managed to get an important support from their Government. They even met with the Prime Minister and got him to sign an offer of full support. I think this becomes dangerous for a DebConf, given that I ve worked and have had mishaps while funding conferences with at least three governments (Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil) with stronger levels of support (Law-like level) for free software and I know that at least other two governments in the World have unfortunately done this in the past. So we need backup plans and lots of follow-up activities with the stakeholders.
However, this agreement sets an important milestone in government support for free and open source software as well as Debian. I ll use it in my Debian slides, and congratulations!
IMO, Munich would have made a great host for DC11 in terms of air travel connectivity, at a bigger hit on local costs, but nothing that would differ that much from DC7, though! I don t think I ll be able to make it at this moment to Bosnia (struggling for NYC) and at this point it s premature to think on supporting Quito s again for DC12. People and sponsors get gradually tired, even with spiritual commitment.
The DC10 decision meeting was long and lots of things needed to be improved. At that moment I thought the Project learnt useful lessons for future meetings, but we re repeating ourselves now on the DC11 decision meeting. And now, I m just hoping for the best, for the sake of the time and sanity of all us here. Ditch the priority list altogether, increase the stakeholders on the global team, filter bids early in the process and use more technology to improve the information flow before the decision!
Debconf11
This evening, the final decision on which city will host Debconf11 next
year
will be taken.
For the last half year, mostly Andreas Barth, Jan-Marek Glogowski and
I
have been working hard to make the Munich bid as good as possible. One
thing we wanted to make clear from the beginning was that we would go for
a conference in the city center - not some conference center in some
nearby village or in an industrial area far away from where the city life
happens.
It was not easy, since the german-wide decision, we had to reshuffle
venue
plans a couple of times.
In the end, thanks to Jan-Marek, we managed to get an excellent
venue
offer. Our bid consits mostly of:
If you want to help the 
We had a visitor on #mono today who needed help with his homework. It seems that 
Barnes and Noble released the 
Check out 
I am MJ Ray and I have not blogged for a week</bloggers-anonymous>
Sorry about that. Basically, it s been hectic and I don t want to write about some of the things that have been going on between the co-op and its clients (nothing bad for 
The 
After a whole bunch of drastic changes, lots of bugfixes, rewriting and refactoring, I 
Christian Robert
This afternoon, a box arrived from 
Almost all of wiki contents got updated, so please take your time to review it all, once again 
n was more of a symbolic meaning, since in meantime we solved our bids weakest links and pretty much got it mature and at the stage we were aiming it to be. We ll still make some minor changes to it until the final decision date (in 47 hours) but this is it really 
So without further ado, let me introduce you to our n wiki 
Since besides changing pretty much the whole wiki we have also added (important) new pages for:
Banja Luka and Republika Srpska
We have added a new pages to bring 
To remind you, we will get free venue building wheter it s Government Building or Banski Dvori , besides that we re getting them to cover basically all of the costs needed for the conference, and besides that we re getting 5 additional members to our local team (highly capable and educated govt. officials) which even includes city Mayor. Early tomorrow we ll get scan/fax of this memorandum from Chief of Cabinet along with the local team names which will all together be added to this very wiki page.
Local Team
We have almost 
Bosnia and Herzegovina FTW! 
Hmm, it looks like upgrading markdown was not clever idea, it seems to have
broken lot of posts on the blog.
Hopefully it is correct now.