Hey thanks for that feedback. If we could have that in a Jira ticket, it'd
be more likely to get attention, as we could get it to the right folk to
look at. I know I am always interested in feedback on our AIX work, because
all customers/users do not use it the same way.

File a ticket in the PUP project in jira please. Thanks


On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 1:29 AM, Ian Stickland <natursh...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi -
>
> I have been playing around with the Puppet AIX agent and trying to get my
> head around the NIM package provider.
>
> The task I've set myself is to write a basic module that allows me to
> install the latest OpenSSL/SSH fixes as this has become quite a regular
> task :)
>
> I've kind of got there, but it's thrown up some odd behaviour in the  NIM
> package provider (and probably the AIX through installp one too... )
>
> What it seems the NIM provider does is enumerate each individual package
> or actually AIX fileset... it then seems to look for each fileset using
> lslpp and if it doesn't find it, tries to install it immediately, again as
> a single fileset.
>
> This kind of works, but does occasionally fall foul of dependencies.
>
> However, it largely misses some of the main functionality used by installp
> on AIX systems in my view.
>
> For example, when you install an AIX service pack, it a a directory of
> quite literally hundreds of filesets, and the file names are pretty much
> incomprehensible in relation to what actual fileset is contained within.
>
> The nimclient command effectively supports two attributes that have
> default values that make life a lot easier.
>
> filesets=all
>
> fixes=update_all
>
> So, if you want to install all the filesets in the lpp_source listed you'd
> use the former, and if you want to apply all fixes to only what is
> installed then you'd use the latter. So for example, to install an AIX fix
> pack without adding any new features (filesets) to your AIX install you end
> with something like
>
> nimclient -o cust -a installp_flags=acgXY -a lpp_source=AIXFIXPACK -a
> fixes=update_all
>
> If you wanted to install all filesets in an lpp source then you'd need
> something like...
>
> nimclient -o cust -a installp_flags=acgXY -a lpp_source=PRODUCT -a
> files=all
>
> The other thing I've noticed in the debug output is the handling of
> multiple filesets in the package name. As mentioned above the nim.rb
> provider goes through each provided name in sequence checking it exists
> with lslpp and then if it doesn't trying to immediate install just that
> fileset.
>
> I can see why this behaviour may be wanted if you want to ensure the exact
> version of exact filesets, but given that puppet seems to not enforce
> specifying a version, when it isn't specified, it may be better to just
> pass all the fileset names to installp.
>
> If you do that, *and* there are any inter-dependencies, installp will
> figure it out and install all of the filesets, plus any that are required
> dependents assuming they are in the source directory/resource you are
> using.
>
> It would also be nice to be able to add any additional command line flags
> too.... to force the install of a backlevel fileset for example. Dangerous
> yes, but sometimes useful.
>
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