Implement zabbix_template's unlink/unlink and clear technique for linked templates to zabbix_host module

[fibbs]

SUMMARY

I would love to see the possibility to control whether a template that is linked to an existing host in Zabbix and NOT listed in the "link_templates" attribute of the zabbix_host module gets "unlinked" or "unlinked and cleared". If I have understood the documenation and source code of both the zabbix_host and the zabbix_template modules correctly, this functionality is already implemented in the zabbix_template module: if there is a template linked to the template in question, but not listed in zabbix_template's "link_templates" attribute, it's going to be unlinked. If this same template is additionally listed in the "unlink_templates" attribute, it's getting not only unlinked from the template in question, it's also getting cleared. Currently, if I understand the code of zabbix_host correctly, there is only the possibility to "unlink and clear" a template from a host, because there is no "clear_templates" attribute and the clear is implicit.

ISSUE TYPE

• Feature Idea

COMPONENT NAME

zabbix_host

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Very useful in large scale migrations where to change several hosts to change from one to another template (updated template, new version) wihtout deleting all existing data.

[D3DeFi]

Thank you for the feature idea @fibbs.

This should be doable without huge effort. However we would change existing functionality by introducing clear_templates module parameter and changing link_templates to match what zabbix_template does as someone may rely on the existing functionality already.

@sky-joker what do you think? Can we proceed with mirroring zabbix_template or we rather handle the situation differently (causing inconsistency between these two modules) for example by introducing clear_templates as a boolean value defaulting to True?

[Intotheunknown]

Hey! Is there a chance to implement this? It would be really useful to be able to unlink and clear while removing hosts with zabbix_host state:absent. Greetings,

[mprenditore]

This would be really nice, and I agree with the proposal of @D3DeFi to add just a variable clear_templates defaulted to True to avoid any breaking change.

[D3DeFi]

Hey folks, I'll be happy to merge such PR. Unfortunately I don't have many opportunities to code it myself atm.