9. cdist(1)¶

9.1. NAME¶

cdist - Usable Configuration Management

9.2. SYNOPSIS¶

cdist [-h] [-q] [-v] [-V] {banner,config,install,inventory,shell} ...

cdist banner [-h] [-q] [-v]

cdist config [-h] [-q] [-v] [-b] [-C CACHE_PATH_PATTERN] [-c CONF_DIR]
             [-i MANIFEST] [-j [JOBS]] [-n] [-o OUT_PATH]
             [-R [{tar,tgz,tbz2,txz}]] [-r REMOTE_OUT_DIR]
             [--remote-copy REMOTE_COPY] [--remote-exec REMOTE_EXEC]
             [-I INVENTORY_DIR] [-A] [-a] [-f HOSTFILE] [-p [HOST_MAX]]
             [-s] [-t]
             [host [host ...]]

cdist install [-h] [-q] [-v] [-b] [-C CACHE_PATH_PATTERN] [-c CONF_DIR]
              [-i MANIFEST] [-j [JOBS]] [-n] [-o OUT_PATH]
              [-R [{tar,tgz,tbz2,txz}]] [-r REMOTE_OUT_DIR]
              [--remote-copy REMOTE_COPY] [--remote-exec REMOTE_EXEC]
              [-I INVENTORY_DIR] [-A] [-a] [-f HOSTFILE] [-p [HOST_MAX]]
              [-s] [-t]
              [host [host ...]]

cdist inventory [-h] [-q] [-v] [-b] [-I INVENTORY_DIR]
                {add-host,add-tag,del-host,del-tag,list} ...

cdist inventory add-host [-h] [-q] [-v] [-b] [-I INVENTORY_DIR]
                         [-f HOSTFILE]
                         [host [host ...]]

cdist inventory add-tag [-h] [-q] [-v] [-b] [-I INVENTORY_DIR]
                        [-f HOSTFILE] [-T TAGFILE] [-t TAGLIST]
                        [host [host ...]]

cdist inventory del-host [-h] [-q] [-v] [-b] [-I INVENTORY_DIR] [-a]
                         [-f HOSTFILE]
                         [host [host ...]]

cdist inventory del-tag [-h] [-q] [-v] [-b] [-I INVENTORY_DIR] [-a]
                        [-f HOSTFILE] [-T TAGFILE] [-t TAGLIST]
                        [host [host ...]]

cdist inventory list [-h] [-q] [-v] [-b] [-I INVENTORY_DIR] [-a]
                     [-f HOSTFILE] [-H] [-t]
                     [host [host ...]]

cdist shell [-h] [-q] [-v] [-s SHELL]

9.3. DESCRIPTION¶

cdist is the frontend executable to the cdist configuration management. It supports different subcommands as explained below.

It is written in Python so it requires python(1) to be installed. It requires a minimal Python version 3.2.

9.4. GENERAL¶

All commands accept the following options:

-h, --help¶: Show the help screen.

-q, --quiet¶: Quiet mode: disables logging, including WARNING and ERROR.

-v, --verbose¶: Increase the verbosity level. Every instance of -v increments the verbosity level by one. Its default value is 0 which includes ERROR and WARNING levels. The levels, in order from the lowest to the highest, are: ERROR (-1), WARNING (0), INFO (1), VERBOSE (2), DEBUG (3) TRACE (4 or higher).

-V, --version¶: Show version and exit.

9.6. CONFIG/INSTALL¶

Configure/install one or more hosts. Install command is currently in beta.

-A, --all-tagged¶: Use all hosts present in tags db. Currently in beta.

-a, --all¶: List hosts that have all specified tags, if -t/--tag is specified.

-b, --beta¶: Enable beta functionality.

-C CACHE_PATH_PATTERN, --cache-path-pattern CACHE_PATH_PATTERN¶: Sepcify custom cache path pattern. If it is not set then default hostdir is used. For more info on format see CACHE PATH PATTERN FORMAT below.

-c CONF_DIR, --conf-dir CONF_DIR¶: Add a configuration directory. Can be specified multiple times. If configuration directories contain conflicting types, explorers or manifests, then the last one found is used.

-f HOSTFILE, --file HOSTFILE¶: Read specified file for a list of additional hosts to operate on or if '-' is given, read stdin (one host per line). If no host or host file is specified then, by default, read hosts from stdin. For the file format see HOSTFILE FORMAT below.

-I INVENTORY_DIR, --inventory INVENTORY_DIR¶: Use specified custom inventory directory. Inventory directory is set up by the following rules: if this argument is set then specified directory is used, if CDIST_INVENTORY_DIR env var is set then its value is used, if HOME env var is set then ~/.cdit/inventory is used, otherwise distribution inventory directory is used.

-i MANIFEST, --initial-manifest MANIFEST¶: Path to a cdist manifest or - to read from stdin.

-j [JOBS], --jobs [JOBS]¶: Operate in parallel in specified maximum number of jobs. Global explorers, object prepare and object run are supported. Without argument CPU count is used by default. Currently in beta.

-n, --dry-run¶: Do not execute code.

-o OUT_PATH, --out-dir OUT_PATH¶: Directory to save cdist output in.

-p [HOST_MAX], --parallel [HOST_MAX]¶: Operate on multiple hosts in parallel for specified maximum hosts at a time. Without argument CPU count is used by default.

-R [{tar,tgz,tbz2,txz}], --use-archiving [{tar,tgz,tbz2,txz}]¶: Operate by using archiving with compression where appropriate. Supported values are: tar - tar archive, tgz - gzip tar archive (the default), tbz2 - bzip2 tar archive and txz - lzma tar archive. Currently in beta.

-r REMOTE_OUT_PATH, --remote-out-dir REMOTE_OUT_PATH¶: Directory to save cdist output in on the target host.

-s, --sequential¶: Operate on multiple hosts sequentially (default).

--remote-copy REMOTE_COPY¶: Command to use for remote copy (should behave like scp).

--remote-exec REMOTE_EXEC¶: Command to use for remote execution (should behave like ssh).

-t, --tag¶: Host is specified by tag, not hostname/address; list all hosts that contain any of specified tags. Currently in beta.

9.6.1. HOSTFILE FORMAT¶

The HOSTFILE contains one host per line. A comment is started with '#' and continues to the end of the line. Any leading and trailing whitespace on a line is ignored. Empty lines are ignored/skipped.

The Hostfile lines are processed as follows. First, all comments are removed. Then all leading and trailing whitespace characters are stripped. If such a line results in empty line it is ignored/skipped. Otherwise, host string is used.

9.6.2. CACHE PATH PATTERN FORMAT¶

Cache path pattern specifies path for a cache directory subdirectory. In the path, '%N' will be substituted by the target host, '%h' will be substituted by the calculated host directory, '%P' will be substituted by the current process id. All format codes that python datetime.strftime() function supports, except '%h', are supported. These date/time directives format cdist config/install start time.

If empty pattern is specified then default calculated host directory is used.

Calculated host directory is a hash of a host cdist operates on.

Resulting path is used to specify cache path subdirectory under which current host cache data are saved.

9.7. INVENTORY¶

Manage inventory database. Currently in beta with all sub-commands.

9.8. INVENTORY ADD-HOST¶

Add host(s) to inventory database.

host¶: Host(s) to add.

-b, --beta¶: Enable beta functionality.

-f HOSTFILE, --file HOSTFILE¶: Read additional hosts to add from specified file or from stdin if '-' (each host on separate line). If no host or host file is specified then, by default, read from stdin. Hostfile format is the same as config hostfile format.

-I INVENTORY_DIR, --inventory INVENTORY_DIR¶: Use specified custom inventory directory. Inventory directory is set up by the following rules: if this argument is set then specified directory is used, if CDIST_INVENTORY_DIR env var is set then its value is used, if HOME env var is set then ~/.cdist/inventory is used, otherwise distribution inventory directory is used.

9.9. INVENTORY ADD-TAG¶

Add tag(s) to inventory database.

host¶: List of host(s) for which tags are added.

-b, --beta¶: Enable beta functionality.

-f HOSTFILE, --file HOSTFILE¶: Read additional hosts to add tags from specified file or from stdin if '-' (each host on separate line). If no host or host file is specified then, by default, read from stdin. If no tags/tagfile nor hosts/hostfile are specified then tags are read from stdin and are added to all hosts. Hostfile format is the same as config hostfile format.

-I INVENTORY_DIR, --inventory INVENTORY_DIR¶: Use specified custom inventory directory. Inventory directory is set up by the following rules: if this argument is set then specified directory is used, if CDIST_INVENTORY_DIR env var is set then its value is used, if HOME env var is set then ~/.cdist/inventory is used, otherwise distribution inventory directory is used.

-T TAGFILE, --tag-file TAGFILE¶: Read additional tags to add from specified file or from stdin if '-' (each tag on separate line). If no tag or tag file is specified then, by default, read from stdin. If no tags/tagfile nor hosts/hostfile are specified then tags are read from stdin and are added to all hosts. Tagfile format is the same as config hostfile format.

-t TAGLIST, --taglist TAGLIST¶: Tag list to be added for specified host(s), comma separated values.

9.10. INVENTORY DEL-HOST¶

Delete host(s) from inventory database.

host¶: Host(s) to delete.

-a, --all¶: Delete all hosts.

-b, --beta¶: Enable beta functionality.

-f HOSTFILE, --file HOSTFILE¶: Read additional hosts to delete from specified file or from stdin if '-' (each host on separate line). If no host or host file is specified then, by default, read from stdin. Hostfile format is the same as config hostfile format.

-I INVENTORY_DIR, --inventory INVENTORY_DIR¶: Use specified custom inventory directory. Inventory directory is set up by the following rules: if this argument is set then specified directory is used, if CDIST_INVENTORY_DIR env var is set then its value is used, if HOME env var is set then ~/.cdist/inventory is used, otherwise distribution inventory directory is used.

9.11. INVENTORY DEL-TAG¶

Delete tag(s) from inventory database.

host¶: List of host(s) for which tags are deleted.

-a, --all¶: Delete all tags for specified host(s).

-b, --beta¶: Enable beta functionality.

-f HOSTFILE, --file HOSTFILE¶: Read additional hosts to delete tags for from specified file or from stdin if '-' (each host on separate line). If no host or host file is specified then, by default, read from stdin. If no tags/tagfile nor hosts/hostfile are specified then tags are read from stdin and are deleted from all hosts. Hostfile format is the same as config hostfile format.

-I INVENTORY_DIR, --inventory INVENTORY_DIR¶: Use specified custom inventory directory. Inventory directory is set up by the following rules: if this argument is set then specified directory is used, if CDIST_INVENTORY_DIR env var is set then its value is used, if HOME env var is set then ~/.cdist/inventory is used, otherwise distribution inventory directory is used.

-T TAGFILE, --tag-file TAGFILE¶: Read additional tags from specified file or from stdin if '-' (each tag on separate line). If no tag or tag file is specified then, by default, read from stdin. If no tags/tagfile nor hosts/hostfile are specified then tags are read from stdin and are added to all hosts. Tagfile format is the same as config hostfile format.

-t TAGLIST, --taglist TAGLIST¶: Tag list to be deleted for specified host(s), comma separated values.

9.12. INVENTORY LIST¶

List inventory database.

host¶: Host(s) to list.

-a, --all¶: List hosts that have all specified tags, if -t/--tag is specified.

-b, --beta¶: Enable beta functionality.

-f HOSTFILE, --file HOSTFILE¶: Read additional hosts to list from specified file or from stdin if '-' (each host on separate line). If no host or host file is specified then, by default, list all. Hostfile format is the same as config hostfile format.

-H, --host-only¶: Suppress tags listing.

-I INVENTORY_DIR, --inventory INVENTORY_DIR¶: Use specified custom inventory directory. Inventory directory is set up by the following rules: if this argument is set then specified directory is used, if CDIST_INVENTORY_DIR env var is set then its value is used, if HOME env var is set then ~/.cdist/inventory is used, otherwise distribution inventory directory is used.

-t, --tag¶: Host is specified by tag, not hostname/address; list all hosts that contain any of specified tags.

9.13. SHELL¶

This command allows you to spawn a shell that enables access to the types as commands. It can be thought as an "interactive manifest" environment. See below for example usage. Its primary use is for debugging type parameters.

-s SHELL, --shell SHELL¶: Select shell to use, defaults to current shell. Used shell should be POSIX compatible shell.

9.14. FILES¶

~/.cdist: Your personal cdist config directory. If exists it will be automatically used.
~/.cdist/inventory: The home inventory directory. If ~/.cdist exists it will be used as default inventory directory.
cdist/conf: The distribution configuration directory. It contains official types and explorers. This path is relative to cdist installation directory.
cdist/inventory: The distribution inventory directory. This path is relative to cdist installation directory.

9.15. NOTES¶

cdist detects if host is specified by IPv6 address. If so then remote_copy command is executed with host address enclosed in square brackets (see scp(1)).

9.16. EXAMPLES¶

# Configure ikq05.ethz.ch with debug enabled
% cdist config -vvv ikq05.ethz.ch

# Configure hosts in parallel and use a different configuration directory
% cdist config -c ~/p/cdist-nutzung \
    -p ikq02.ethz.ch ikq03.ethz.ch ikq04.ethz.ch

# Use custom remote exec / copy commands
% cdist config --remote-exec /path/to/my/remote/exec \
    --remote-copy /path/to/my/remote/copy \
    -p ikq02.ethz.ch ikq03.ethz.ch ikq04.ethz.ch

# Configure hosts read from file loadbalancers
% cdist config -f loadbalancers

# Configure hosts read from file web.hosts using 16 parallel jobs
# (beta functionality)
% cdist config -b -j 16 -f web.hosts

# Display banner
cdist banner

# Show help
% cdist --help

# Show Version
% cdist --version

# Enter a shell that has access to emulated types
% cdist shell
% __git
usage: __git --source SOURCE [--state STATE] [--branch BRANCH]
             [--group GROUP] [--owner OWNER] [--mode MODE] object_id

# Install ikq05.ethz.ch with debug enabled
% cdist install -vvv ikq05.ethz.ch

# List inventory content
% cdist inventory list -b

# List inventory for specified host localhost
% cdist inventory list -b localhost

# List inventory for specified tag loadbalancer
% cdist inventory list -b -t loadbalancer

# Add hosts to inventory
% cdist inventory add-host -b web1 web2 web3

# Delete hosts from file old-hosts from inventory
% cdist inventory del-host -b -f old-hosts

# Add tags to specifed hosts
% cdist inventory add-tag -b -t europe,croatia,web,static web1 web2

# Add tag to all hosts in inventory
% cdist inventory add-tag -b -t vm

# Delete all tags from specified host
% cdist inventory del-tag -b -a localhost

# Delete tags read from stdin from hosts specified by file hosts
% cdist inventory del-tag -b -T - -f hosts

# Configure hosts from inventory with any of specified tags
% cdist config -b -t web dynamic

# Configure hosts from inventory with all specified tags
% cdist config -b -t -a web dynamic

# Configure all hosts from inventory db
$ cdist config -b -A

9.17. ENVIRONMENT¶

TMPDIR, TEMP, TMP: Setup the base directory for the temporary directory. See http://docs.python.org/py3k/library/tempfile.html for more information. This is rather useful, if the standard directory used does not allow executables.
CDIST_PATH: Colon delimited list of config directories.
CDIST_LOCAL_SHELL: Selects shell for local script execution, defaults to /bin/sh.
CDIST_REMOTE_SHELL: Selects shell for remote script execution, defaults to /bin/sh.
CDIST_OVERRIDE: Allow overwriting type parameters.
CDIST_ORDER_DEPENDENCY: Create dependencies based on the execution order.
CDIST_REMOTE_EXEC: Use this command for remote execution (should behave like ssh).
CDIST_REMOTE_COPY: Use this command for remote copy (should behave like scp).
CDIST_INVENTORY_DIR: Use this directory as inventory directory.
CDIST_BETA: Enable beta functionality.
CDIST_CACHE_PATH_PATTERN: Custom cache path pattern.

9.18. EXIT STATUS¶

The following exit values shall be returned:

0 Successful completion.

1 One or more host configurations failed.

9.19. AUTHORS¶

Originally written by Nico Schottelius <nico-cdist--@--schottelius.org> and Steven Armstrong <steven-cdist--@--armstrong.cc>.

9.20. CAVEATS¶

When operating in parallel, either by operating in parallel for each host (-p/--parallel) or by parallel jobs within a host (-j/--jobs), and depending on target SSH server and its configuration you may encounter connection drops. This is controlled with sshd MaxStartups configuration options. You may also encounter session open refusal. This happens with ssh multiplexing when you reach maximum number of open sessions permitted per network connection. In this case ssh will disable multiplexing. This limit is controlled with sshd MaxSessions configuration options. For more details refer to sshd_config(5).

When requirements for the same object are defined in different manifests (see example below), for example, in init manifest and in some other type manifest and those requirements differ then dependency resolver cannot detect dependencies correctly. This happens because cdist cannot prepare all objects first and run all objects afterwards. Some object can depend on the result of type explorer(s) and explorers are executed during object run. cdist will detect such case and display a warning message. An example of such a case:

init manifest:
    __a a
    require="__e/e" __b b
    require="__f/f" __c c
    __e e
    __f f
    require="__c/c" __d d
    __g g
    __h h

type __g manifest:
    require="__c/c __d/d" __a a

Warning message:
    WARNING: cdisttesthost: Object __a/a already exists with requirements:
    /usr/home/darko/ungleich/cdist/cdist/test/config/fixtures/manifest/init-deps-resolver /tmp/tmp.cdist.test.ozagkg54/local/759547ff4356de6e3d9e08522b0d0807/data/conf/type/__g/manifest: set()
    /tmp/tmp.cdist.test.ozagkg54/local/759547ff4356de6e3d9e08522b0d0807/data/conf/type/__g/manifest: {'__c/c', '__d/d'}
    Dependency resolver could not handle dependencies as expected.