puppet-alternatives

Manage alternatives symlinks.

Synopsis

Using puppet resource to inspect alternatives

root@master:~# puppet resource alternatives
alternatives { 'aptitude':
  path => '/usr/bin/aptitude-curses',
}
alternatives { 'awk':
  path => '/usr/bin/mawk',
}
alternatives { 'builtins.7.gz':
  path => '/usr/share/man/man7/bash-builtins.7.gz',
}
alternatives { 'c++':
  path => '/usr/bin/g++',
}
alternatives { 'c89':
  path => '/usr/bin/c89-gcc',
}
alternatives { 'c99':
  path => '/usr/bin/c99-gcc',
}
alternatives { 'cc':
  path => '/usr/bin/gcc',
}

---

Using puppet resource to update an alternative

root@master:~# puppet resource alternatives editor
alternatives { 'editor':
  path => '/bin/nano',
}
root@master:~# puppet resource alternatives editor path=/usr/bin/vim.tiny
notice: /Alternatives[editor]/path: path changed '/bin/nano' to '/usr/bin/vim.tiny'
alternatives { 'editor':
  path => '/usr/bin/vim.tiny',
}

---

Using the alternatives resource in a manifest:

class ruby_193 {

  package { 'ruby1.9.3':
    ensure => present,
  }

  # Will also update gem, irb, rdoc, rake, etc.
  alternatives { 'ruby':
    path    => '/usr/bin/ruby1.9.3',
    require => Package['ruby1.9.3'],
  }
}

include ruby_193

---

Creating a new alternative entry:

alternative_entry { '/usr/bin/gcc-4.4':
  ensure   => present,
  altlink  => '/usr/bin/gcc',
  altname  => 'gcc',
  priority => 10,
  require  => Package['gcc-4.4-multilib'],
}

---

On RedHat, configuring an alternative using a family instead of a full path:

alternatives { 'java':
  path    => 'java-1.8.0-openjdk.x86_64',
  require => Package['java-1.8.0-openjdk'],
}

This module should work on any Debian and RHEL based distribution.

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