The multitemplate Puppet function allows you to list multiple template sources and use the first one that exists.

class ssh::config {

  file { "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" :
    ensure  => present,
    mode    => '0600',
    content => multitemplate( "ssh/${::fqdn}",
                              "ssh/${::domain}",
                              'ssh/default_sshdconfig'
                            ),
  }

}

While it's currently possible to invoke template with multiple sources specified it does not behave as most people expect. Instead of selecting the first existing match it concatenates the templates together when used as below:

class ssh::config {

  file { "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" :
    ensure  => present,
    content => template( "ssh/${::fqdn}",
                         "ssh/${::domain}",
                         'ssh/default_sshdconfig'
                       ),
  }

}

This Puppet function was originally written by R.I.Pienaar and raised as Allow multiple sources for a template and only use the first template if it exists in the Puppet Issue tracker.

I've added all the usual module boilerplate scaffolding with permission.

Note: I will be more than happy to take this module down when the functionality is in core Puppet.

You can install this module from PuppetForge:

puppet module install deanwilson-multitemplate

Apache 2.0 - Dean Wilson