Logging an Execs output

Challenge

Your exec has output you want puppet to log or silently ignore.

Solution

class exec_logging {

  # on_failure logs the commands output on failure
  exec { 'delete_str_tmp':
    path      => '/usr/local/bin/:/bin:/usr/sbin',
    command   => 'find /tmp/ -name \'*.str\' -type f | xargs -n 1 rm',
    logoutput => 'on_failure',
  }

}

Explanation

When an exec runs a command that has output it can be handled by puppet in a number of different ways. If you want the output to be logged (and then passed back in reports or to Dashboard) you can specify logoutput => true, (note - the true isn't quoted). If you want the command to be silent even on failure (puppet will still show an error if the exec fails) you can specify logoutput => false. Otherwise if you only care about the output when something breaks (as we often do) you can pass the string on_failure to logoutput.