Jira (PUP-9465) group resource type should support lgroupadd provider on Linux

[James Ralston (JIRA)]

Title: Message Title

James Ralston created an issue   Puppet / PUP-9465 group resource type should support lgroupadd provider on Linux Issue Type: New Feature Affects Versions: PUP 6.1.0 Assignee: Unassigned Components: Types and Providers Created: 2019/01/24 2:15 PM Priority: Normal Reporter: James Ralston Puppet Version: 6.1.0 Puppet Server Version: 6.1.0 OS Name/Version: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 The group resource type supports the groupadd provider, but not the lgroupadd provider. lgroupadd (and lgroupmod and lgroupdel) are part of the libuser library/package. While libuser is essentially a rewrite of the groupadd, groupmod, and groupdel programs from the shadow-utils package (because Red Hat tends toward NIH syndrome), lgroupmod has one important advantage over groupmod: lgroupmod can manipulate group members directly. E.g., you can do this: $ lgroupmod --member-add user1,user2,user3 somegroup In contrast, groupmod cannot do this. Instead, you have to do this: $ usermod -a -G somegroup user1 $ usermod -a -G somegroup user2 $ usermod -a -G somegroup user3 This is why the groupadd provider for the group resource type lacks the manages_members feature. The implication of this is that in Puppet, if you want to have a class manage the contents of a group, the only way to do it (using default resource types) is to manage user resources for each user who should be a member of the group. But this doesn't scale, because if any other module is attempting to manage a user resource type for the same user, the resources will clash. In contrast, if support were added for the lgroupadd provider, the manages_members feature could be enabled for it. This would permit managing the membership of an arbitrary group by managing a single group resource for the group, instead of managing individual user resources. Granted, this could create the state where a Puppet user resource using the useradd provider could "fight" with a Puppet group resource using the lgroupadd provider. But this potential for conflict already exists in other places in Puppet (e.g., augeas resources can cheerfully fight with file resources). So I don't think the potential for conflict is a reason to avoid adding the lgroupadd provider. So, in summary, I think Puppet should add support for the lgroupadd provider (and company) for the group resource type on platforms where the libuser library/package is available: Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS, and potentially others. Yay or nay? (I may be able to work on adding this provider myself, but I don't want to spend the time on a merge request if Puppet is philosophically opposed to adding support for the lgroupadd provider.) Add Comment   This message was sent by Atlassian JIRA (v7.7.1#77002-sha1:e75ca93) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Puppet Bugs" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to puppet-bugs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to puppet-bugs@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/puppet-bugs. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.