Package Installation

Install Packages with Hiera Package Groups

The packages automatically installed onto a system by Puppet are managed in the Hiera list base::package_groups. It contains the names of the package groups to be installed. Items can be added at all levels of the Hiera hierarchy and are merged.

The package groups itself are Hieara lists named base::pkg_group::$USE_CASE. Here list all the packages you want to install.

Currently there exist the following package groups in the main common.yaml:

base::pkg_group::system_tools (installed by default)
base::pkg_group::daq_buffer
base::pkg_group::desktop_settings
base::pkg_group::dev
base::pkg_group::login_server
base::pkg_group::qt5
base::pkg_group::root

but further ones can be created in Hiera at lower hierachies and added to base::package_groups, for example

base::pkg_group::java:
    - 'java-1.8.0-openjdk'
    - 'java-11-openjdk'
    - 'java-17-openjdk'

base::package_groups:
    - 'java'

Install a Group of Packages

To add a RedHat predefined group of packages (checkout out dnf grouplist --hidden) prepend the name of it with a @, e.g. for "Java Platform" it would be @Java Platform:

base::pkg_group::java:
    - '@Java Platform'

Install Latest Package Version

Puppet by default only checks if a package is installed and only installs it if missing. To ensure that always the latest available package version is installed, append the :latest tag to the package name in the package group:

base::pkg_group::java:
    - 'java-1.8.0-openjdk'
    - 'java-11-openjdk'
    - 'java-17-openjdk:latest'

Install Packages only on Given OS Version

Certain packages are only used on a given OS Version, so a os= with the OS name and the major version selects a package only for given OS, where as a os! will filter away given package on hosts with given OS, so they are not installed there.

base::pkg_group::java:
    - 'java-1.8.0-openjdk:os=redhat7'
    - 'java-11-openjdk'
    - 'java-17-openjdk:os!redhat7'

Note that this tag can be combined with the latest and absent tag.

Install Module Stream

RHEL 8 introduced the concept of module streams. A specific stream can be selected with the stream tag:

base::pkg_group::nodejos:
    - 'nodejs:stream=12'

Remove Packages

To remove an already installed package, append the :absent tag to the package name in the package group:

base::pkg_group::java:
    - 'java-1.8.0-openjdk:absent'
    - 'java-11-openjdk'
    - 'java-17-openjdk'

Ignore Packages

To make packages unavailable for installation, even though provided by the package repositories, add them in Hiera to the list base::package_exclude:

base::package_exclude:
    - 'epics-base-7.0.6*'

This list is merged over the full Hiera hierachy, so there is no need to copy exclusions from higher levels when creating an exclusion on a low level.

This list can also be used to opt out packages from other, maybe inherited package groups. But unlike the :absent tag in a package list it will not uninstall a package when found.

Install Debuginfo Packages

The package repositories for debuginfo packages are disabled by default. To spontaneously install such a package, do

dnf --enablerepo '*_debug' install ...

Legacy Package Installation

The legacy Hiera lists for package groups is yum_client::pkg_group::$USE_CASE and supports the latest and absent tag, but not the filtering by operating system version.

Then yum_client::package_groups is the Hiera list to contain the package groups to be installed.

Please migrate them to the equivalent base::* list. You can have both of them available at the same time, with possibly the same content.

Missing Package

If there is no such package in the repositories, then

Error: Execution of '/usr/bin/dnf -d 0 -e 1 -y install non-existing-package-for-test' returned 1: Error: Unable to find a match: non-existing-package-for-test

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