2.6. Configuring the HTTP Server

The HTTP Server is now installed and enabled. The next step is to provide some configuration. The HTTP server already provides some default configuration in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf, which provides a web host on port 80. We will add some additional configuration to provide an additional web host on a user-specified port.
We use a template file to store our configuration content because the user-defined port requires variable input. In our module, create a directory called templates and add a file called myserver.conf.erb in the new directory. Add the following contents to the file: 
Listen <%= @httpd_port %>
NameVirtualHost *:<%= @httpd_port %>
<VirtualHost *:<%= @httpd_port %>>
  DocumentRoot /var/www/myserver/
  ServerName <%= @fqdn %>
  <Directory "/var/www/myserver/">
    Options All Indexes FollowSymLinks
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
This template follows the standard syntax for Apache web server configuration. The only difference is the inclusion of Ruby escape characters to inject variables from our module. For example, httpd_port, which we use to specify the web server port.
Notice also the inclusion of fqdn, which is a variable that stores the fully qualified domain name of the system. This is known as a system fact. System facts are collected from each system prior to generating each respective system's Puppet catalog. Puppet uses the facter command to gather these system facts and you can also run facter to view a list of these facts.
Edit the httpd.pp manifest and add the highlighted lines: 
class mymodule::httpd {
  package { 'httpd':
    ensure => installed,
  }
  service { 'httpd':
    ensure => running,
    enable => true,
    require => Package["httpd"],
  }
  file {'/etc/httpd/conf.d/myserver.conf':
  notify => Service["httpd"],
    ensure => file,
    require => Package["httpd"],
    content => template("mymodule/myserver.conf.erb"),
  }
  file { "/var/www/myserver":
    ensure => "directory",
  }
}
This achieves the following:
  • We add a file resource declaration for the server configuration file (/etc/httpd/conf.d/myserver.conf). The content for this file is the myserver.conf.erb template we created earlier. We also check the httpd package is installed before adding this file.
  • We also add a second file resource declaration. This one creates a directory (/var/www/myserver for our web server.
  • We also add a relationship between the configuration file and the httpd service using the notify => Service["httpd"] attribute. This checks our configuration file for any changes. If the file has changed, Puppet restarts the service.
We also need to include the httpd_port parameter in our main manifest file. Edit the init.pp manifest and add the following line: 
class mymodule (
  $http_port = 80
) {
  include mymodule::httpd
}
This sets the httpd_port parameter to a default value of 80. You can override this value with the Satellite Server.
Run the puppet apply command again to test the changes to our module: 
# puppet apply mymodule/tests/init.pp --noop
Warning: Config file /etc/puppet/hiera.yaml not found, using Hiera defaults
Notice: Compiled catalog for puppet.example.com in environment production in 0.84 seconds
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/File[/var/www/myserver]/ensure: current_value absent, should be directory (noop)
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Package[httpd]/ensure: current_value absent, should be present (noop)
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/File[/etc/httpd/conf.d/myserver.conf]/ensure: current_value absent, should be file (noop)
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Service[httpd]/ensure: current_value stopped, should be running (noop)
Notice: Class[Mymodule::Httpd]: Would have triggered 'refresh' from 4 events
Notice: Stage[main]: Would have triggered 'refresh' from 1 events
Notice: Finished catalog run in 0.51 seconds

Note

The warning for the hiera.yaml file is safe to ignore.
The highlighted lines show the creation of the configuration file and our web host directory