Puppet - How to purge a directory - linux

Question

A bit of a Puppet newbie here. I am trying to recursively purge all files and directories under /var/www except keep one file present (/var/www/html/appicon.ico). This is my code:
file {'/var/www':
ensure => directory,
recurse => true,
purge => true,
force => true,
require => Package['httpd'],
subscribe => Package['httpd']
} ->
file {'/var/www/html':
ensure => directory,
owner => 'root',
group => 'root',
mode => '0755'
} ->
file {'/var/www/html/appicon.ico':
ensure => file,
owner => 'root',
group => 'root',
mode => '0644',
content => ''
}
The code does appear to purge all files and directories, except for other files under /var/www/html. Any thoughts what I am doing wrong here or how this can be done properly?

Answer 1

You would need to set purge on the html directory too, that is:
file {'/var/www':
ensure => directory,
recurse => true,
purge => true,
force => true,
require => Package['httpd'],
subscribe => Package['httpd'],
} ->
file {'/var/www/html':
ensure => directory,
recurse => true, # note here
purge => true, #
owner => 'root',
group => 'root',
mode => '0755'
} ->
file {'/var/www/html/appicon.ico':
ensure => file,
owner => 'root',
group => 'root',
mode => '0644',
content => ''
}
Explicitly including a file/directory in a Puppet manifest "protects" it from being purged by purge => true, recurse => true set on its parent directory.