[Pkg-puppet-devel] Bug#781231: Bug#781231: err: Could not retrieve catalog from remote server: Error 400 on SERVER: Unsupported osfamily (Debian) or lsbdistid () at /usr/share/puppet/modules/apt/manifests/params.pp:39

[Russ Allbery]

Stig Sandbeck Mathisen <ssm at debian.org> writes:

> One can either:

> * Add lsb-release as a dependency, which pulls in python3 on all the
>   nodes.

>   On a test, in a clean debootstrapped docker image, installing "puppet"
>   without recommended packages, apt reports 36.6 MB disk space use.
>   Installing "lsb-release" after that is another 18 MB.

> or:

> * In puppet postinst, if lsb-release is not installed, add a file to
>   /etc/facter/facts.d/things.yaml containing:

>     ---
>     lsbdistid: something

> (or a .txt, json, .ini file, or an executable script) 

> Which will make "facter lsbdistid" emit "something", and make that
> module work.  That file will need care and feeding on upgrades, and
> probably be removed if lsb-release is ever installed.  That solution
> feels like a hack, and will complicate the dpkg pre/post scripts
> forever.

Ah, interesting -- yeah, we could have it do something based on
/etc/debian_version or something, but we'd have to keep regenerating the
file periodically, and I'd also worry about the fragility.

> I'd vote for adding lsb-release as a hard dependency, given that the
> lsb* facts are so widely used by modules on the Puppet Forge.

It would be really nice if lsb-release would work with python3-minimal
instead of python3.  The only thing that's missing is csv.  :(  That would
cut the space usage in half.

18MB is kind of a large space bump.  I wonder what the chances one will
get away with not having python3 at all in a Puppet node.

But even with that, I feel like providing lsb-release would simplify
things the most for users, unless we felt like trying to maintain the
facts ourselves with some postinst hackery.  And that sounds pretty
tricky to do reliably.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>