[Puppet Users] What is the "@" used for?

On Oct 26, 2012, at 11:58 AM, jcbollinger wrote:
On Thursday, October 25, 2012 7:40:50 PM UTC-5, Ben McCann wrote:
See http://docs.puppetlabs.com/guides/virtual_resources.html

On Thursday, October 25, 2012 5:01:45 PM UTC-7, Dave Alden wrote:
Hi,
Sorry to be dense, but I've recently switched over to use the puppet labs apache module, but I was having trouble with the firewall not getting updated. It turns out that the "@" in front of the firewall line seems to be keeping it from running. As soon as I removed it, my firewall got updated. So what does the "@" do?
…dave


Do read the docs on virtual resources to which Ben directed you. They should answer the question you posed. With respect to some of the questions you did not pose:

Changing a resource from virtual to concrete is probably not the best solution, and it may not even be a correct solution, depending on the module implementation details and your own configuration needs. Do read whatever module documentation there is; it should cover questions regarding which of its classes and resources are intended to be used directly by your own classes, and how, and which are intended for internal use only.

In particular, if the firewall resource you are talking about is intended to be accessed by outside classes and resources, then the docs ought to instruct you to realize it via the 'realize' function or a resource collection. You probably should not make it concrete (by removing the '@'), certainly not if you don't understand what you're doing.