``pe_patch::patch_server`` silently stops working when lock file artifact isn't deleted.

Affected Puppet, Ruby, OS and module versions/distributions

It was observed that pe_patch::patch_server was incorrectly not reporting any updates on a server; manually running yum on the server, however, showed a long list of updates. The problem was that several months ago a lock file /var/run/pe_patch_fact_generation.lock had been left behind. Even though the cron job continued to run opt/puppetlabs/pe_patch/pe_patch_fact_generation.sh on a regular basis, the script exited with 0 and no warning.

How to reproduce (e.g Puppet code you use)

Manually create a lock file /var/run/pe_patch_fact_generation.lock owned by root in such a way that Cron cannot remove the file

What are you seeing

Manually running the script above with trace shows the following:

[root@LUAPP708 ~]# /opt/puppetlabs/pe_patch/pe_patch_fact_generation.sh
Locked, exiting


[root@LUAPP708 ~]# bash -x /opt/puppetlabs/pe_patch/pe_patch_fact_generation.sh
+ PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/opt/puppetlabs/puppet/bin:/opt/puppetlabs/bin
+ LOCKFILE=/var/run/pe_patch_fact_generation.lock
+ trap '{ rm -f /var/run/pe_patch_fact_generation.lock ; exit 255; }' 2 3 15
+ '[' -f /var/run/pe_patch_fact_generation.lock ']'
+ echo 'Locked, exiting'
Locked, exiting
+ exit 0

After removing the lock file, everything worked as expected.

What behaviour did you expect instead

Output log

Any additional information you'd like to impart

Start with /opt/puppetlabs/pe_patch/pe_patch_fact_generation.sh and reproduce the stale /var/run/pe_patch_fact_generation.lock condition described in the issue. Check the script's exit status and output when the lock remains, then verify that normal update reporting resumes after the condition is handled.