Puppet and templates : how to loop sequently and not randomly

See my node's configuration:

 $property_name = {
     "unit_1"  => { host => [ "dns_name1/192.168.0.1/25" ,"dns_name2/192.168.0.2/25" ] 
                  },
     "unit_2"  => { host => [ "dns_name3/192.168.0.3/25", "dns_name4/192.168.0.4/25" ] 
                  },
 }
 include class::property

In the template, I used some loop with

"<% property_name.each do |key,value| -%>", 
"<%= value['host'][id_host].split("/")[0] %>", 
 <%= value['host'][id_host].split("/")[1] %>,

... to write config files.

But, when I have a lot of "units" (unit_3, unit_4, etc.) the template's content changed every time Puppet's daemon runs.

It didn't have any impact because the config file is correct but I would like to know if the template's loop could generate config files in this order : unit_1 then unit_2, then unit_3, ... without to take some unit randomly.

I used this tutorial : http://www.krzywanski.net/archives/703

Solution 1:

You should be able to use Ruby to sort the values inline to provide consistent results:

"<% property_name.sort_by {|key, value| key}.each do |key, value| -%>"