sysctl.present replaces spaces by tabs

[bdrung]

Description of Issue/Question

salt/modules/linux_sysctl.py tries to be smart in persist() and replaces spaces by tabs:

        # On Linux procfs, files such as /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_rmem or any
        # other sysctl with whitespace in it consistently uses 1 tab.  Lets
        # allow our users to put a space or tab between multi-value sysctls
        # and have salt not try to set it every single time.
        if isinstance(comps[1], string_types) and ' ' in comps[1]:
            comps[1] = re.sub(r'\s+', '\t', comps[1])

        # Do the same thing for the value 'just in case'
        if isinstance(value, string_types) and ' ' in value:
            value = re.sub(r'\s+', '\t', value)

This behavior exists since at least salt 0.11. Sadly following state:

kernel-core-pattern:
    sysctl.present:
        - config: /etc/sysctl.d/50-dump-core.conf
        - name: kernel.core_pattern
        - value: "|/usr/share/kdump-tools/dump-core %p %s %t %e"

leads to following setting:

$ hd /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern 
00000000  7c 2f 75 73 72 2f 73 68  61 72 65 2f 6b 64 75 6d  ||/usr/share/kdum|
00000010  70 2d 74 6f 6f 6c 73 2f  64 75 6d 70 2d 63 6f 72  |p-tools/dump-cor|
00000020  65 09 25 70 09 25 73 09  25 74 09 25 65 0a        |e.%p.%s.%t.%e.|
0000002e

There is a difference between tabs and spaces for this setting!

Versions Report

$ salt-call --versions-report
Salt Version:
           Salt: 2016.11.2
 
Dependency Versions:
           cffi: Not Installed
       cherrypy: Not Installed
       dateutil: 2.2
          gitdb: Not Installed
      gitpython: Not Installed
          ioflo: Not Installed
         Jinja2: 2.7.3
        libgit2: Not Installed
        libnacl: Not Installed
       M2Crypto: Not Installed
           Mako: Not Installed
   msgpack-pure: Not Installed
 msgpack-python: 0.4.2
   mysql-python: Not Installed
      pycparser: Not Installed
       pycrypto: 2.6.1
         pygit2: Not Installed
         Python: 2.7.9 (default, Jun 29 2016, 13:08:31)
   python-gnupg: Not Installed
         PyYAML: 3.11
          PyZMQ: 14.4.0
           RAET: Not Installed
          smmap: Not Installed
        timelib: Not Installed
        Tornado: 4.2.1
            ZMQ: 4.0.5
 
System Versions:
           dist: debian 8.7 
        machine: x86_64
        release: 4.4.36-2-pserver
         system: Linux
        version: debian 8.7 

[gtmanfred]

Thanks for reporting this.

Looks like this was added back in 0.9.8 545dca0

@SEJeff do you have any opinions about this?

Thanks,
Daniel

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

If this issue is closed prematurely, please leave a comment and we will gladly reopen the issue.

[bdrung]

please reopen

[gtmanfred]

@sagetherage

[bdrung]

Just confirmed that the behavior is still the same in salt 3000.2.