file distribution bug?

[John SJ Anderson]

  I have a possible file distribution bug, I think. CfEngine version
  2.0.7p3, running in a Slackware-based Linux environment, distributing
  files from a single master to around 600 hosts.

  I have one particular file (a load balancer config file) that has a
  very odd distribution pattern: it may or may not be present on a host,
  but if it is present, it's going to be different than any other host
  in the network.

  Rather than spell out an individual copy stanza for each host, I did
  this:

any::
  $(master)/path/to/file/$(host)
     dest=/path/to/file
     type=checksum
     backup=true
     server=$(policyhost)

  And then I have the files for the individual hosts in the appropriate
  directory named 'host1', 'host2', etc. If a host isn't supposed to
  have this file, there's no file in the appropriate directory. 

  This has been working out fine -- there are a lot of warnings
  generated in the log, when cfserv tries to stat() a file that doesn't
  exist, but I can live with that. However, there have been a couple of
  instances recently where a host that shouldn't get a file _has_ ended
  up with a file: one that contains part of a cfengine error message
  (the "can't resolve name" one) followed by a chunk of binary garbage.

  Clearly, my first step is to upgrade the clients and the server to a
  more recent CfEngine release -- recommendations on an appropriately
  stable version are welcome. Assuming that doesn't fix the problem, how
  should I go about troubleshooting this? Is this because of the idiom I
  used to write the copy stanza? Is there a better way to do that (other
  than spelling out individual stanzas for each host?)

  Thanks for any help.

cheers,
john.
-- 
John S J Anderson, Ph.D.         [ Contractor ]     +1.301.402.7499
Chief Penguin Herder & Linux Team Lead, Systems Group, NCBI/NLM/NIH
I think you are asking the wrong question here.
  Mark Jason Dominus's Good Advice #11931