Logging debug messages

It can be very helpful when debugging problems if you can print out information at a certain point in the manifest. This is a good way to tell, for example, if a variable isn't defined or has an unexpected value. Sometimes it's useful just to know that a particular piece of code has been run. Puppet's notify resource lets you print out such messages.

How to do it...

Define a notify resource in your manifest at the point you want to investigate:

notify { 'Got this far!': }

How it works...

When this resource is applied, Puppet will print out the message:

notice: Got this far!

There's more...

In addition to simple messages, we can output variables within our notify statements. Additionally, we can treat the notify calls the same as other resources, having them require or be required by other resources.

Printing out variable values

You can refer to variables in the message:

notify { "operatingsystem is ${::operatingsystem}": }

Puppet will...