Discussion on migrating remote_file module to voxpupuli

[TraGicCode]

Hey Guys,

I ran into this amazing module and noticed @reidmv reached out the to maintainer who is no longer actively working on this module. He suggested transferring ownership to voxpupuli so this approved module which is cross-platform and built with types and providers ( which also has 1 million downloads ) doesn't die. It also does some advanced things like automatically creating file resources and embedding them in the catalog during compilation.

https://forge.puppet.com/lwf/remote_file

While we already have a "download_file" module ( which isn't cross platform ) and the archive module ( which just does alot ). I would like to get some feedback about the fate of this module.

Thanks

[bastelfreak]

Has the remote_file module any features that our archive one hasn't?

[reidmv]

@bastelfreak remote_file is laser-focused on describing files that should be present, sourced from a remote HTTP(S) source. It is very much NOT about downloading-and-extracting zip files, tarballs, etc. It's a "do one thing and do it well" unix philosophy kind of module.

The main utility it currently provides beyond what is available in Puppet's file type is proxy support and ability to set SSL no verify (verify_peer parameter).

Compared to archive, its pros are clearer user experience and readability of Puppet code for the target use case (which is not archive files), and a rough optional ensure=latest capability based on last-modified headers.

[TraGicCode]

To tack on with what reid said, the file resource still isn’t Quite full featured. For example it has issues downloading github releases from github.com and I’ve run into problems elsewhere like downloading signed urls from google and azure cloud.

The archive module does handle a lot of file downloading functionality ( unfortunately archive is turning into a Swiss Army knife ) so there is overlap. this remote_file module has cross platform types and providers and in my eyes would be a great opportunity to deprecate something like the “download” file module under vox which would be a win in regards to quality and cross-platform functionality

[ekohl]

This is an old issue by now. As part of a triage we're going through them. Is this still relevant or can we close it?

[kenyon]

I didn't know about this proposal to migrate remote_file when I replaced remote_file with archive in voxpupuli/puppet-ca_cert#69, so I'd say we might as well just use the archive module instead.