Dfyjkt

Consider I have a profile that installs a package. After installation, it runs some exec commands. But these commands need to run only once when the package is first installed.

 package 'package1':
 ensure => 'present'
 

 exec 'signal_package_conf':
 command => 'systemctl restart package.service',
 path => '/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin',
 refreshonly => true,
 subscribe => Package['package1'],
 

But suppose this particular package gets installed as a dependency for another package in another profile.

When puppet comes to the package1 resource, it will find that the package is already installed and will not install it again. Since puppet would not know of this implicit package dependency, will the subscription to the package still work and execute the command in the exec resource?

This answer is in two parts, to address two possible interpretations of your query about refresh relationships in general.

Refresh events and ordering from other classes

Let me try to rewrite what I understand your question to be in more general terms. You are asking:

Question

Suppose that Exec resource Y subscribes with refreshonly => true to a resource X in class A. Then suppose that resource Z requires the same resource X in class B.

In other words, imagine this code:

class b () 
 notify 'Z':
 require => Notify['X'],
 


class a () 
 notify 'X': 
 exec 'Y':
 command => '/bin/echo Y',
 refreshonly => true,
 subscribe => Notify['X'],
 


include a
include b

Is it possible for the final ordering to be X, Z, Y, and if so, will the refresh event definitely reach Exec resource Y, considering that X and Y could be separated by Z in time?

Answer

Yes, and yes. Recall that Puppet builds a directed acyclic graph, and it computes the final ordering from traversing that graph. This code leads to two possible orderings in time, X, Y, Z and X, Z, Y (try it a few times using puppet apply /tmp/code.pp --ordering=random).

But that's ok, because Puppet also tracks a queue of resources that have received a refresh event.

What if package A is installed as a dependency of package B by the package manager outside of Puppet

It's also possible that you are asking about RPM or other package-manager-level dependencies that exist outside of Puppet. If so, naturally, Puppet can't know about these.

If so, yes, the refresh event would not be sent if the package manager (or anything else outside of Puppet) satisfied the subscription.