Directories¶

Confab loads all of its definitions, generates Templates, and saves remote copies of configuration files in locations relative to a single base directory.

A normal Confab directory tree might look like:

base_dir/settings.py            # definitions
base_dir/templates/{component}/ # templates for {component}
base_dir/data/default.py        # default configuration data
base_dir/data/{environment}.py  # per-environment configuration data
base_dir/data/{role}.py         # per-role configuration data
base_dir/data/{component}.py    # per-component configuration data
base_dir/data/{host}.py         # per-host configuration data
base_dir/generated/{hostname}/  # generated configuration files for hostname
base_dir/remotes/{hostname}/    # copies of remote configuration files from hostname

Confab selects this base directory in one of several ways:

1. By default, the base directory is the same directory where settings.py was loaded.

   Both the confab console script and the generate_tasks() function load settings.py and construct an EnvironmentDefinition, which retains a reference to the directory where settings.py was loaded. This definition is saved in the Fabric environment as env.environmentdef for use by subsequent tasks.

2. The diff(), generate(), pull(), and push() tasks support an explicit directory argument.

3. If all else fails, Confab falls back to os.getcwd().