Conditionals

Conditionals are used for creating rules for when a command should be executed or a configuration should be used on a host or hostgroup.

Valid conditions are == (equal), != (different), >= (greater or equal) and <= (lower or equal). The >= and <= operators can only be used for numbers. The == and != operators can be used both for strings (text comparison) and numbers.

Several conditionals (as many as you want) can be concatenated using and and or. They will be evaluated following a sequential and logical order (i.e. for condition1 or condition2, if the first condition complies, the second one won't be evaluated).

Usage:

1. Conditional blocks on "def" files

Conditionals can be used for defining blocks inside a "def" file that should be executed if a condition complies. Both the opening tag if <condition> and the ending tag endif must be written on a single line with no extra characters but the accepted parameters. Between them you can write any commands that will be executed only if the condition validates.

Note: Since v0.075 you can use nested conditionals.

Syntax:

if <%var%> == value [or|and condition2] [or|and ...]
[...]
endif

Example:

if <%DIST%> == debian and <%DIST_VER%> == 6 or <%DIST%> == centos and <%DIST_VER%> >= 5
    install: package
    exec: some command
endif

2. Single commands on "def" files

Conditionals can be used for single commands inside a "def" file. The standard syntax applies, and you can also define conditions for concrete commands even inside a conditional block (see above)

Syntax:

exec if <%var%> == value [or|and condition2] [or|and ...]: some command

Example:

install if <%DIST%> == debian and <%DIST_VER%> == 6 or <%DIST%> == centos and <%DIST_VER%> >= 5: package

3. Conditional blocks on configuration files

Conditionals can also be used inside configuration files (see configurations on the documentation) for defining parts of the configuration file that should be only uploaded to the target server if the condition complies. The usage is the same as for Conditional blocks on "def" files (see above) but defined by the tags <%if condition%> <%endif%>.

Note: Since v0.075 you can use nested conditionals.

Syntax:

<%if <%var%> == value [or|and condition2] [or|and ...]%>
[...]
<%endif%>

Example:

<%if <%DIST%> == debian and <%DIST_VER%> == 6%>
    some configuration that applies only to Debian 6
<%endif%>
<%if <%DIST%> == debian and <%DIST_VER%> >= 7%>
    some configuration that applies only to Debian 7 or newer
<%endif%>
common configuration that applies to all systems