Re: Using tidy + rmdirs to delete a directory and its contents

[Eric Sorenson]

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004, Josh Smith wrote:

> I'm trying to use tidy and rmdirs to delete a directory and everything in
> it, and having some trouble doing so.
> 
> I first tried a 'tidy' block with
> 
>   /etc/yum.repos.d pattern=* recurse=inf age=0 rmdirs=true 
> 
> which worked the first time, but the next run, complained that the
> directory wasn't there; and on the run after that, complained
> 
>   Couldn't obtain lock for 
> lock._var_cfengine_mf_cfengine_cfagent_conf_generic..tidy.tidy_2138 (already 
> running!)

Ok, I repeated this problem, my config uses yum.repos.e so as not to nuke
my actual hard-fought yum.repos.d directory :)

  control:
    actionsequence = ( tidy )
  tidy:
    /etc/yum.repos.e  pattern=* recurs=inf age=0 rmdirs=true

Run 1, Purges the files and deletes the /etc/yum.repos.e directory itself
Run 2, says
    cfengine:amine: Tidy directory /etc/yum.repos.e cannot be accessed
Run 3, says
    Couldn't obtain lock for lock.cfagent_conf.amine.tidy.tidy_2139 (already 
running!)

So the error is in the second run, where we leave the tidy section without
releasing the lock. The attached patch fixes three sanity checks that will
return to the calling function without a ReleaseLock(). The patch is against
the current snap but it does apply with an offset to 2.1.11; I'd suggest
trying that to keep your overall delta to a minimum.

Remember to remove your /var/cfengine/cfengine_lock_db or the staleness
will linger.

> http://www.cfengine.org/docs/cfengine-Reference.html#tidy vaguely implies
> that I might want rmdirs=all rather than rmdirs=true, although it's not
> very specific about that -- it says "If this option is set to `true' then
> cfengine will delete any directories which are empty", but it doesn't say
> what it does if the option is set to 'all'.

According to the code, 'true' or 'all' are the same thing. 'false' or
'none' are acceptable, and 'sub' only removes subdirectories, leaving
the topmost dir (/etc/yum.repos.e in our example) intact. The docs should
probably say something like

-rmdirs=true/false/all/sub
+rmdirs= [ true | all ] / [ false / none ] / sub

Hope this helps. Pop by #cfengine on irc.freenode.net if you're still having
trouble.

-- 

 - Eric Sorenson - Explosive Networking - http://eric.explosive.net -