vcsrepo

Table of contents

1. Overview
2. Module Description - What the module does and why it is useful
3. Setup - The basics of getting started with vcsrepo
   • Setup requirements
   • Beginning with vcsrepo
4. Usage - Configuration options and additional functionality
   • Git
   • Bazaar
   • CVS
   • Mercurial
   • Perforce
   • Subversion
5. Reference - An under-the-hood peek at what the module is doing and how
   • Type: vcsrepo
     • Providers
     • Features
6. Limitations - OS compatibility, etc.
7. Development - Guide for contributing to the module

Overview

The vcsrepo module lets you use Puppet to easily deploy content from your version control system (VCS).

Module description

The vcsrepo module provides a single type with providers to support the following version control systems:

• Git
• Bazaar
• CVS
• Mercurial
• Perforce
• Subversion

Note: This module does not have the functionality to purge or delete local changes on agent run. Note: git is the only vcs provider officially supported by Puppet Inc. Note: Release v4.0.1 has been removed from the Puppet Forge and was officially re-released as version v5.0.0 as it contained a breaking change. Details available here

Setup

Setup requirements

The vcsrepo module does not install any VCS software for you. You must install a VCS before you can use this module.

Like Puppet in general, the vcsrepo module does not automatically create parent directories for the files it manages. Set up any needed directory structures before you start.

Beginning with vcsrepo

To create and manage a blank repository, define the type vcsrepo with a path to your repository and supply the provider parameter based on the VCS you're using.

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => git,
}

Usage

Note: git is the only vcsrepo provider officially supported by Puppet Inc.

Git

Create a blank repository

To create a blank repository suitable for use as a central repository, define vcsrepo without source or revision:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => git,
}

If you're managing a central or official repository, you might want to make it a bare repository. To do this, set ensure to 'bare':

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => bare,
  provider => git,
}

Clone/pull a repository

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => git,
  source   => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
}

To clone your repository as bare or mirror, you can set ensure to 'bare' or 'mirror':

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => mirror,
  provider => git,
  source   => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
}

By default, vcsrepo will use the HEAD of the source repository's main branch. To use another branch or a specific commit, set revision to either a branch name or a commit SHA or tag.

Branch name:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => git,
  source   => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
  revision => 'development',
}

SHA:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => git,
  source   => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
  revision => '0c466b8a5a45f6cd7de82c08df2fb4ce1e920a31',
}

Tag:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => git,
  source   => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
  revision => '1.1.2rc1',
}

To check out a branch as a specific user, supply the user parameter:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => git,
  source   => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
  revision => '0c466b8a5a45f6cd7de82c08df2fb4ce1e920a31',
  user     => 'someUser',
}

To keep local changes while changing revision, use the keep_local_changes:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure             => present,
  provider           => git,
  source             => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
  revision           => '0c466b8a5a45f6cd7de82c08df2fb4ce1e920a31',
  keep_local_changes => true,
  user               => 'someUser',
}

To keep the repository at the latest revision, set ensure to 'latest'. Note: keep_local_changes works by stashing local changes, switching the repo to the assigned revision and, finally, unstashing the local changes. It only comes into effect if the revision parameter is different from the local repo. This parameter DOES NOT delete/purge local changes by default on every run.

WARNING: This overwrites any local changes to the repository.

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => latest,
  provider => git,
  source   => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
  revision => 'main',
}

To clone the repository but skip initializing submodules, set submodules to 'false':

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure     => latest,
  provider   => git,
  source     => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
  submodules => false,
}

To clone the repository and trust the server certificate (sslVerify=false), set trust_server_cert to 'true':

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure            => present,
  provider          => git,
  source            => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
  trust_server_cert => true,
}

To use a specific umask, set umask to the desired value (expressed as a string of octal numbers); note that changes to umask do not retroactively affect repo files created earlier under a different umask. This is currently only implemented for the git provider. If unspecified, this will use the umask of the puppet process itself.

Example to set shared group access:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => git,
  source   => 'git://example.com/repo.git',
  revision => '0c466b8a5a45f6cd7de82c08df2fb4ce1e920a31',
  umask    => '0002'
}

Use HTTP or HTTPS proxies

To use an HTTP or HTTPS proxy, set http_proxy to the proxy URL. This is currently only implemented for the git provider.

git uses libcurl, so proxying of HTTPS repo URLs uses the CONNECT method, which works with either an HTTP or HTTPS proxy (since libcurl 7.52.0).

Example to use an HTTPS proxy:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure     => present,
  provider   => git,
  source     => 'https://example.com/repo.git',
  http_proxy => 'https://proxy.example.com',
  revision   => '0c466b8a5a45f6cd7de82c08df2fb4ce1e920a31',
}

Proxies can also be specified as a hash, keyed by remote, in which case vcsrepo will use the specified proxy for each remote that is used as a source (see the source parameter). For any source that does not have an http_proxy defined, no proxy will be used.

Example to use per-remote HTTPS proxies use a proxy for github but not for other remotes:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure     => present,
  provider   => git,
  source     => {
    origin => 'https://example.com/repo.git',
    github => 'https://github.com/example/repo.git',
  },
  http_proxy => {
    github => 'https://proxy2.example.com',
  },
  revision   => '0c466b8a5a45f6cd7de82c08df2fb4ce1e920a31',
}

Specification of proxies this way affects remote operations performed by vcsrepo, but does not persist the proxy settings within either the per-user git configuration or the per-repo git configuration. This means that manual operations like git fetch and git pull within vcsrepo-managed working copies will not use proxies. If you need such operations to use proxies, then you can instead configure git on a per-user or per-repository basis. Example instructions for configuring git for a user are here: https://gist.github.com/evantoli/f8c23a37eb3558ab8765

For per-repository configuration, use --local instead of --global for git config commands (or edit the .git/config file within each repo working copy).

Use multiple remotes with a repository

In place of a single string, you can set source to a hash of one or more name => URL pairs:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => git,
  remote   => 'origin'
  source   => {
    'origin'       => 'https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-vcsrepo.git',
    'other_remote' => 'https://github.com/other_user/puppetlabs-vcsrepo.git'
  },
}

Note: If you set source to a hash, one of the names you specify must match the value of the remote parameter. That remote serves as the upstream of your managed repository.

Connect via SSH

To connect to your source repository via SSH (such as 'username@server:…'), we recommend managing your SSH keys with Puppet and using the require metaparameter to make sure they are present before the vcsrepo resource is applied.

To use SSH keys associated with a user, specify the username in the user parameter:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => latest,
  provider => git,
  source   => 'ssh://[email protected]/repo.git',
  user     => 'toto', #uses toto's $HOME/.ssh setup
  require  => File['/home/toto/.ssh/id_rsa'],
}

To use SSH over a nonstandard port, use the full SSH scheme and include the port number:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => latest,
  provider => git,
  source   => 'ssh://[email protected]:7999/repo.git',
}

Important changes in version 5

Prior to version 5.0.0 StrictHostKeyChecking was implicitly disabled when using the identity parameter. This meant that ssh would automatically add new hosts to ~/.ssh/known_hosts, letting most connections succeed.

StrictHostKeyChecking has now been removed from the options passed to ssh which will result in ssh falling back to it's default, ask. This could cause puppet runs to fail.

To ensure a run completes successfully, you should add the hosts public key to the known_hosts before the vcsrepo resource is applied.

You can usually get the public key of an ssh host by running ssh-keyscan. Adding the result to your known_hosts file may look similar to this:

ssh-keyscan -t rsa github.com >> /home/me/.ssh/known_hosts

Once everything is configured, you can continue to manage your repositories with ssh.

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => latest,
  provider => git,
  source   => '[email protected]:user/repo.git',
  identity => '/home/me/.ssh/id_rsa',
}

Bazaar

Create a blank repository

To create a blank repository, suitable for use as a central repository, define vcsrepo without source or revision:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => bzr,
}

Branch from an existing repository

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => bzr,
  source   => '/some/path',
}

To branch from a specific revision, set revision to a valid Bazaar revision spec:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => bzr,
  source   => '/some/path',
  revision => '[email protected]',
}

Connect via SSH

To connect to your source repository via SSH (such as 'bzr+ssh://...' or 'sftp://...,'), we recommend using the require metaparameter to make sure your SSH keys are present before the vcsrepo resource is applied:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => latest,
  provider => bzr,
  source   => 'bzr+ssh://bzr.example.com/some/path',
  user     => 'toto', #uses toto's $HOME/.ssh setup
  require  => File['/home/toto/.ssh/id_rsa'],
}

CVS

Create a blank repository

To create a blank repository suitable for use as a central repository, define vcsrepo without source or revision:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => cvs,
}

Checkout/update from a repository

vcsrepo { '/path/to/workspace':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => cvs,
  source   => ':pserver:[email protected]:/sources/myproj',
}

To get a specific module on the current mainline, supply the module parameter:

vcsrepo { '/vagrant/lockss-daemon-source':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => cvs,
  source   => ':pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/lockss',
  module   => 'lockss-daemon',
}

To set the GZIP compression levels for your repository history, use the compression parameter:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/workspace':
  ensure      => present,
  provider    => cvs,
  compression => 3,
  source      => ':pserver:[email protected]:/sources/myproj',
}

To get a specific revision, set revision to the revision number.

vcsrepo { '/path/to/workspace':
  ensure      => present,
  provider    => cvs,
  compression => 3,
  source      => ':pserver:[email protected]:/sources/myproj',
  revision    => '1.2',
}

You can also set revision to a tag:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/workspace':
  ensure      => present,
  provider    => cvs,
  compression => 3,
  source      => ':pserver:[email protected]:/sources/myproj',
  revision    => 'SOMETAG',
}

Connect via SSH

To connect to your source repository via SSH, we recommend using the require metaparameter to make sure your SSH keys are present before the vcsrepo resource is applied:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => latest,
  provider => cvs,
  source   => ':pserver:[email protected]:/sources/myproj',
  user     => 'toto', #uses toto's $HOME/.ssh setup
  require  => File['/home/toto/.ssh/id_rsa'],
}

Mercurial

Create a blank repository

To create a blank repository suitable for use as a central repository, define vcsrepo without source or revision:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => hg,
}

Clone/pull and update a repository

To get the default branch tip:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => hg,
  source   => 'http://hg.example.com/myrepo',
}

For a specific changeset, use revision:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => hg,
  source   => 'http://hg.example.com/myrepo',
  revision => '21ea4598c962',
}

You can also set revision to a tag:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => hg,
  source   => 'http://hg.example.com/myrepo',
  revision => '1.1.2',
}

To check out as a specific user:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => hg,
  source   => 'http://hg.example.com/myrepo',
  user     => 'user',
}

To specify an SSH identity key:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => hg,
  source   => 'ssh://[email protected]/myrepo',
  identity => '/home/user/.ssh/id_dsa1',
}

To specify a username and password for HTTP Basic authentication:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure              => latest,
  provider            => hg,
  source              => 'http://hg.example.com/myrepo',
  basic_auth_username => 'hgusername',
  basic_auth_password => 'hgpassword',
}

NOTE: The sensitive basic_auth_password can be deferred using the Deferred function on Puppet Master and enable to execute on agent.

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure              => latest,
  provider            => hg,
  source              => 'http://hg.example.com/myrepo',
  basic_auth_username => 'hgusername',
  basic_auth_password => Deferred('sprintf', ['hgpassword']),
}

Connect via SSH

To connect to your source repository via SSH (such as 'ssh://...'), we recommend using the require metaparameter to make sure your SSH keys are present before the vcsrepo resource is applied:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => latest,
  provider => hg,
  source   => 'ssh://hg.example.com//path/to/myrepo',
  user     => 'toto', #uses toto's $HOME/.ssh setup
  require  => File['/home/toto/.ssh/id_rsa'],
}

Perforce

Create an empty workspace

To set up the connection to your Perforce service, set p4config to the location of a valid Perforce config file stored on the node:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => p4,
  p4config => '/root/.p4config'
}

Note: If you don't include the P4CLIENT setting in your config file, the provider generates a workspace name based on the digest of path and the node's hostname (such as puppet-91bc00640c4e5a17787286acbe2c021c).

Create/update and sync a Perforce workspace

To sync a depot path to head, set ensure to 'latest':

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => latest,
  provider => p4,
  source   => '//depot/branch/...'
}

To sync to a specific changelist, specify its revision number with the revision parameter:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => p4,
  source   => '//depot/branch/...',
  revision => '2341'
}

You can also set revision to a label:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => p4,
  source   => '//depot/branch/...',
  revision => 'my_label'
}

Subversion

Create a blank repository

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => svn,
}

Check out from an existing repository

Provide a source pointing to the branch or tag you want to check out:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => svn,
  source   => 'svn://svnrepo/hello/branches/foo',
}

You can also designate a specific revision:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => svn,
  source   => 'svn://svnrepo/hello/branches/foo',
  revision => '1234',
}

####Checking out only specific paths

Note: The includes param is only supported when subversion client version is >= 1.6.

You can check out only specific paths in a particular repository by providing their relative paths to the includes parameter, like so:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => present,
  provider => svn,
  source   => 'http://svnrepo/hello/trunk',
  includes => [
    'root-file.txt',
    'checkout-folder',
    'file/this-file.txt',
    'folder/this-folder/',
  ]
}

This will create files /path/to/repo/file-at-root-path.txt and /path/to/repo/file/nested/within/repo.jmx, with folders /path/to/repo/some-folder and /path/to/repo/nested/folder/to/checkout completely recreating their corresponding working tree path.

When specified, the depth parameter will also be applied to the includes -- the root directory will be checked out using an empty depth, and the includes you specify will be checked out using the depth you provide.

To illustrate this point, using the above snippet (with the specified includes) and a remote repository layout like this:

.
├── checkout-folder
│   ├── file1
│   └── nested-1
│       ├── nested-2
│       │   └── nested-file-2
│       └── nested-file-1
├── file
│   ├── NOT-this-file.txt
│   └── this-file.txt
├── folder
│   ├── never-checked-out
│   └── this-folder
│       ├── deep-nested-1
│       │   ├── deep-nested-2
│       │   │   └── deep-nested-file-2
│       │   └── deep-nested-file-1
│       └── this-file.txt
├── NOT-this-file.txt
├── NOT-this-folder
│   ├── NOT-this-file.txt
│   └── NOT-this-one-either.txt
└── root-file.txt

With no depth given, your local folder /path/to/repo will look like this:

.
├── checkout-folder
│   ├── file1
│   └── nested-1
│       ├── nested-2
│       │   └── nested-file-2
│       └── nested-file-1
├── file
│   └── this-file.txt
├── folder
│   └── this-folder
│       ├── deep-nested-1
│       │   ├── deep-nested-2
│       │   │   └── deep-nested-file-2
│       │   └── deep-nested-file-1
│       └── this-file.txt
└── root-file.txt

And with a depth of files will look like this:

.
├── checkout-folder
│   └── file1
├── file
│   └── this-file.txt
├── folder
│   └── this-folder
│       └── this-file.txt
└── root-file.txt

####Use a specific Subversion configuration directory

Use the configuration parameter to designate the directory that contains your Subversion configuration files (typically, '/path/to/.subversion'):

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure        => present,
  provider      => svn,
  source        => 'svn://svnrepo/hello/branches/foo',
  configuration => '/path/to/.subversion',
}

Connect via SSH

To connect to your source repository via SSH (such as 'svn+ssh://...'), we recommend using the require metaparameter to make sure your SSH keys are present before the vcsrepo resource is applied:

vcsrepo { '/path/to/repo':
  ensure   => latest,
  provider => svn,
  source   => 'svn+ssh://svnrepo/hello/branches/foo',
  user     => 'toto', #uses toto's $HOME/.ssh setup
  require  => File['/home/toto/.ssh/id_rsa'],
}

Reference

Type: vcsrepo

The vcsrepo module adds only one type with several providers.

For information on the classes and types, see the REFERENCE.md

Providers

Note: Not all features are available with all providers.

git - Supports the Git VCS.

Features: bare_repositories, depth, multiple_remotes, reference_tracking, ssh_identity, submodules, user

Parameters: depth, ensure, excludes, force, group, identity, owner, path, provider, remote, revision, source, user

bzr - Supports the Bazaar VCS.

Features: reference_tracking

Parameters: ensure, excludes, force, group, owner, path, provider, revision, source

cvs - Supports the CVS VCS.

Features: cvs_rsh, gzip_compression, modules, reference_tracking, user

Parameters: compression, cvs_rsh, ensure, excludes, force, group, module, owner, path, provider

hg - Supports the Mercurial VCS.

Features: reference_tracking, ssh_identity, user

Parameters: ensure, excludes, force, group, identity, owner, path, provider, revision, source, user

p4 - Supports the Perforce VCS.

Features: p4config, reference_tracking

Parameters: ensure, excludes, force, group, owner, p4config, path, provider, revision, source

svn - Supports the Subversion VCS.

Features: basic_auth, configuration, conflict, depth, filesystem_types, reference_tracking

Parameters: basic_auth_password, basic_auth_username, configuration, conflict, ensure, excludes, force, fstype, group, includes, owner, path, provider, revision, source, trust_server_cert

Features

Note: Not all features are available with all providers.

• bare_repositories - Differentiates between bare repositories and those with working copies. (Available with git.)
• basic_auth - Supports HTTP Basic authentication. (Available with hg and svn.)
• conflict - Lets you decide how to resolve any conflicts between the source repository and your working copy. (Available with svn.)
• configuration - Lets you specify the location of your configuration files. (Available with svn.)
• cvs_rsh - Understands the CVS_RSH environment variable. (Available with cvs.)
• depth - Supports shallow clones in git or sets the scope limit in svn. (Available with git and svn.)
• filesystem_types - Supports multiple types of filesystem. (Available with svn.)
• gzip_compression - Supports explicit GZip compression levels. (Available with cvs.)
• include_paths - Lets you checkout only certain paths. (Available with svn.)
• modules - Lets you choose a specific repository module. (Available with cvs.)
• multiple_remotes - Tracks multiple remote repositories. (Available with git.)
• reference_tracking - Lets you track revision references that can change over time (e.g., some VCS tags and branch names). (Available with all providers)
• ssh_identity - Lets you specify an SSH identity file. (Available with git and hg.)
• user - Can run as a different user. (Available with git, hg and cvs.)
• p4config - Supports setting the P4CONFIG environment. (Available with p4.)
• submodules - Supports repository submodules which can be optionally initialized. (Available with git.)

Limitations

Git is the only VCS provider officially supported by Puppet Inc. Git with 3.18 changes the maximum enabled TLS protocol version, this breaks some HTTPS functionality on older operating systems. They are Enterprise Linux 5 and OracleLinux 6.

The includes parameter is only supported when SVN client version is >= 1.6.

For an extensive list of supported operating systems, see metadata.json

Response to CVE-2022-24765

The vulnerability described in this CVE could impact users working on multi-user machines. A malicious actor could create a .git directory above the current working directory causing all git invocations to occur outside of a repository to read its configuration.

For a more in-depth description of this vulnerability, check out this blog post.

Fixes were released in Git versions 2.35.2 and 1:2.25.1-1ubuntu3.4 respectively.

VCSRepo users were impacted when running newer versions of Git and managing repositories that were owned by a user or group that differed from the user executing Git.

For example, setting the owner parameter on a resource would cause Puppet runs to fail with a Path /destination/path exists and is not the desired repository. error.

Impacted users are now advised to use the new safe_directory parameter on Git resources. Explicitily setting the value to true will add the current path specified on the resource to the safe.directory git configuration for the current user (global scope) allowing the Puppet run to continue without error.

Safe directory configuration will be stored within the system wide configuration file /etc/gitconfig.

Development

Puppet Inc. modules on the Puppet Forge are open projects, and community contributions are essential for keeping them great. We can't access the huge number of platforms and myriad of hardware, software, and deployment configurations that Puppet is intended to serve.

We want to keep it as easy as possible to contribute changes so that our modules work in your environment. There are a few guidelines that we need contributors to follow so that we can have a chance of keeping on top of things.

You can read the complete module contribution guide on the Puppet documentation site.