suggestion: create directories if needed

[atbentley]

When creating a remote file, if the full path does not exist then the resource throws and error.

For example:

resource "remote_file" "file" {
  conn        = local.conn
  path        = "/home/ubuntu/services/caddy/docker-compose.yaml"
  content     = file("${path.module}/docker-compose.yaml")
  permissions = "0644"
}

Throws an error

Error: unable to create remote file: scp: /home/ubuntu/services/caddy/docker-compose.yaml: No such file or directory

However if I create the directory /home/ubuntu/services/caddy and then re-run terraform then everything works.

I think it would be nice to have a flag on the resource create_directory which would also create the directory if need be.

[atbentley]

If I would suggest an implementation for this, then looking at the code I see that there are two implementations for writing a file: the SCP implementation for non-sudo and a shell implementation for sudo. Because of this I think it would make sense to add something like this:

func (c *RemoteClient) WriteFile(content string, path string, permissions string, sudo bool) error {

       c.EnsureDirectory(path)  // use the ssh client to create the directory

	if sudo {
		return c.WriteFileShell(content, path)
	}
	return c.WriteFileSCP(content, path, permissions)
}

The owner and group would be the same as the owner and group for the file, and the permissions of the directory can maybe be hard coded to something, perhaps 775?

I'm pretty interested in this so if you also think it's reasonable I would perhaps submit a PR :)

[atbentley]

This would also not clean up perfectly if all resources are deleted, since the directories are not tracked in the terraform state.

[tenstad]

Thank you for the suggestion! I agree, one should not have to manually create directories. We can, as you suggest, ensure that the directories exist when creating a file. Another possibility is to introduce a new directory resource. With such a resource, one could configure the file resource to be dependant on the directory resource, or reference its path in the file resource:

resource "remote_directory" "bar" {
    path = "/etc/foo/bar"
}

resource "remote_file" "baz" {
    path = "${remote_directory.bar.path}/baz.txt"
}

It would still be tricky to correctly delete the directory.

[tenstad]

I think we can start with your suggestion, and possibly create a directory resource in the future.

Yes, there are currently two different ways of creating a file, depending on sudo. I am tempted to use the shell implementation for everything in the future, but think we should leave it as is for now.

If you want to create a PR implementing the create_directory property and the EnsureDirectory method, that would be great! Let me know if you run into any problems.

[atbentley]

After thinking on it a bit more, and after implementing some work arounds, I think a remote_directory resource is a better way to go.

The destroy step can also double check if the directory is empty before deleting.

[tenstad]

Alright, let's go with remote_directory then! You should be able to use a lot from the remote_file resource when creating it.

[rismoney]

when you say remote_directory, do you mean just create/delete of directory or would it handle a directory (ie recursive or directory contents)