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Smart Variables

Smart variables are a tool to provide data to your ENC, depending on a set of rules. They are intended to be a stepping stone to full parameterized classes.

It's also possible to retrieve these values if you're not using a ENC, via a custom Puppet function. You'll need to retrieve the value from 

https://foreman/hosts/<fqdn>/lookup_keys/<key>
You can find a ready-made function for your puppet module at https://github.com/theforeman/puppet-foreman/blob/master/lib/puppet/parser/functions/smartvar.rb

Creating a Smart Variable

Start by going to Foreman -> Settings -> Puppetclasses and then click one of your classes to edit it.

Click on the Smart Variables tab. If you have any existing Smart Variables, they will be listed at the left side of the tab.

Click New Variable, and you will be presented with a set of input fields:

Name
Description
Default Value
Type Validator
Validator Constraint
Order

These are:

  • name is what the parameter will be called in the ENC data
  • description is a free form text box for your own information
  • default_value is what the ENC will use if no other criteria is matched
  • type validator is a combo-box of data types. The type applies to the next field, the validator. See below
  • validator is used to enforce certain values for the Smart Variable. See below for examples
  • order is a list of variables which Foreman will search (in order) for the validator

Once you've created the defaults for your Smart variable, you then need to add at least one criterion to match against - click the "plus" under your variable, and two more input fields will appear:

Match
Value
  • match_expression should state a name = value relationship that Foreman use to match against the entries in searchlist
  • value is what the parameter should be in the ENC, if this rule is matched

Validators

The fourth and fifth fields in the Smart Variable combine to produce a validation criteria for the final value of the Smart Variable.

String validators

At present, the string type cannot be validated - leave the validator field blank, and all strings in the variable will be considered acceptable

Regexp / List validators

By entering a list (comma-separated, no spaces) or a regex (no delimiter required), the value to be assigned to the Smart Variable will be checked against this list. If the value does not match the validator, and error will be raised.

Ordering

All the ordering information is stored in the sixth field of the Smart Variable (order). The order matters and is used to find the first match.

Examples

Example 1 - Simple change to a single host

All our hosts use "server.foo" for something, except bob.domain.com which uses "server2.bar":

Name target
Description The target server to talk to
Default Value server.foo
Type Validator string
Validator Constraint
Order fqdn
hostgroup
os
domain
Match fqdn = bob.domain.com
Value server2.bar

Example 2 - Change for a group of hosts (via custom fact) with validation and ordering

Most hosts need to use a port of "80" but all machines with a fact "region" and value "europe" need to use "8080". To do this, you have to add the factname (in this example "region") to the searchlist:

Name port
Description The port to use
Default Value 80
Type Validator list
Validator Constraint 80,443,8080
Order fqdn
region
hostgroup
os
domain
Match region = europe
Value 8080
Match fqdn = foo.domain
Value 67

Note that all machines will get either 80 or 8080 as required, except foo.domain which will generate an error, since 67 is not in the list validator. Note also that foo.domain will match before region, since it is higher in the searchlist. The rule ordering does not matter.

It is also possible to mix conditions, e.g.
Name port
Description The port to use
Default Value 80
Type Validator list
Validator Constraint 80,443,8080
Order fqdn
region, hostgroup, environment
hostgroup
environment
domain
Match fqdn = foo.domain
Value 67
Match region = europe, hostgroup = "web servers", environment = production
Value 8080

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