Accessing facts from Puppet code

When you write Puppet code, you can access facts in two ways: with the $fact_name syntax, or with the $facts['fact_name'] hash.

Using the $fact_name syntax

Facts appear in Puppet as top-scope variables. They can be accessed in manifests as $fact_name.

For example:
if $osfamily == 'RedHat' { 
  # ...
}
Tip: When you code with this fact syntax, it's not immediately obvious that you're using a fact — someone reading your code needs to know which facts exist to guess that you're accessing a top-scope variable. To make your code easier for others to read, use the $::fact_name syntax as a hint, to show that it's accessing a top-scope variable.

Using the $facts['fact_name'] hash syntax

Alternatively, facts are structured in a $facts hash, and your manifest code can access them as $facts['fact_name']. The variable name $facts is reserved, so local scopes cannot re-use it. Structured facts show up as a nested structure inside the $facts namespace, and can be accessed using Puppet's normal hash access syntax.

For example:
if $facts['os']['family'] == 'RedHat' {
  # ...
}

Accessing facts using this syntax makes for more readable and maintainable code, by making facts visibly distinct from other variables. It eliminates confusion that is possible when you use a local variable whose name happens to match that of a common fact.

Because of ambiguity with function invocation, the dot-separated access syntax that is available in Facter commands is not available with the $facts hash access syntax. However, you can instead use the get function built into core Puppet. For more information, see README.

Improving performance by blocking or caching built-in facts

If Facter is slowing down your code, you can configure Facter to block or cache built-in facts. When a system has a lot of something — for example, mount points or disks — Facter can take a long time to collect the facts from each one. When this is a problem, you can speed up Facter’s collection by configuring these settings in the facter.conf file:

  • blocklist for blocking built-in facts you’re uninterested in.

  • ttls for caching built-in facts you don’t need retrieved frequently.