Data Type Usage from theforeman-dns

[stdietrich]

We run a Foreman instance + couple of Smart Proxies, but we don't use the installer. Instead, we've added the modules to our environment via r10k.
As we don't use the DNS features of the Smart Proxy, only theforeman-foreman_proxy is installed but not theforeman-dns.

With #842, a hard dependency on theforeman-dns has been introduced.
The PR added the usage of data types, which are from theforeman-dns.
Upgrading foreman_proxy to >= v26.1.0 now results into an error, if theforeman-dns is not available:

Error: Could not call 'find' on 'catalog': Evaluation Error: Resource type not found: Dns::Forwarder (file: environments/dev/modules/foreman_proxy/manifests/init.pp, line: 390, column: 9)

Of course there's already a local Puppet dns module, which has nothing in common with theforeman-dns ;)
As a workaround I could add the relevant types to our local dns module.

This is probably an edge-case and rather uncommon deployment model of Foreman, as the installer is not used.
The metadata.json correctly specifies theforeman-dns as a dependency, so this is correctly documented.
Duplicating the data types between theforeman-foreman_proxy and theforeman-dns is not a good solution either.

I am just wondering, if deploying Foreman/Smart Proxies without the installer is really uncommon and only an afterthought, if at all?

[ekohl]

I am just wondering, if deploying Foreman/Smart Proxies without the installer is really uncommon and only an afterthought, if at all?

I'd say it's common enough, but also hard to predict what users will run into. It's something I do like though, so if you have a good solution I'd love to hear it.

[stdietrich]

It's something I do like though, so if you have a good solution I'd love to hear it.

Not really, at least not within scope of theforeman puppet modules:

• Duplicating DNS::Forwarders to foreman_proxy -> duplicate code, maintenance burden
• Moving DNS::Forwards type alias from theforeman-dns to theforeman-foreman_proxy -> will be problematic for standalone users of theforeman-dns
• Relocating all or some type aliases from puppet, dns, dhcp, foreman_proxy & pulpcore to a dedicated foremanlib module -> maintenance and version burden

IMHO this could be only solved in a different module.
DNS::Forwarders just tries to validate an IP address with an optional port. That's part of an TCP/IP socket, without the protocol specification.
puppetlabs-stdlib has several types for validating IP addresses and ports, but nothing to validate a TCP/IP socket address.

So something like Stdlib::Socket::IP, which validates a socket string like tcp://192.0.2.10:1234 or https://[2001:db8:1::10]:1234, where both protocol and port are optional.
That would be a generic solution, but a complex one to cover all possibilities incl. Unix sockets and needs to be accepted within puppetlabs-stdlib.
I've yet to play around with some code and check, if that's really feasible.

Also, this change has been introduced ~10 months ago, seems like our deployment is the first/only one to have a naming collision with a local module 😅