Docs: Language: Resource Defaults


Language: Resource Defaults

Resource defaults let you set default attribute values for a given resource type. Any resource declaration within the area of effect that omits those attributes will inherit the default values.

Syntax

    Exec { 
      path        => '/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin',
      environment => 'RUBYLIB=/opt/puppet/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/',
      logoutput   => true,
      timeout     => 180,
    }

The general form of resource defaults is:

  • The resource type, capitalized. (If the type has a namespace separator (::) in its name, every segment must be capitalized. E.g., Concat::Fragment.)
  • An opening curly brace.
  • Any number of attribute and value pairs.
  • A closing curly brace.

You can specify defaults for any resource type in Puppet, including defined types.

Behavior

Within the area of effect, every resource of the specified type that omits a given attribute will inherit that attribute’s default value.

Attributes that are set explicitly in a resource declaration will always override any default value.

Resource defaults are parse-order independent. A default will affect resource declarations written both above and below it.

Overriding Defaults From Parent Scopes

Resource defaults declared in the local scope will override any defaults received from parent scopes.

Overriding of resource defaults is per attribute, not per block of attributes. Thus, local and inherited resource defaults that don’t conflict with each other will be merged together.

Area of Effect

Although Puppet 3 no longer does dynamic variable lookup, it still uses dynamic scope for resource defaults. See here for a full description of scope rules.

You can declare global resource defaults in the site manifest outside any node definition.

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