puppetlabs/puppet · error · Puppet::Error

Error while parsing 'fromdate'

Error message

Error while parsing 'fromdate'

What it means

The FileBucket list action parses the fromdate option with Ruby's Time.parse; the default is '0:0:0 1-1-1970'. If the string is not a recognized time expression, the ArgumentError is re-raised as Puppet::Error "Error while parsing 'fromdate'". Note that todate is parsed first, so a bad todate surfaces before this one.

Source

Thrown at lib/puppet/indirector/file_bucket_file/file.rb:60

      end
    end

    def list(request)
      if request.remote?
        raise Puppet::Error, _("Listing remote file buckets is not allowed")
      end

      fromdate = request.options[:fromdate] || "0:0:0 1-1-1970"
      todate = request.options[:todate] || Time.now.strftime("%F %T")
      begin
        to = Time.parse(todate)
      rescue ArgumentError
        raise Puppet::Error, _("Error while parsing 'todate'")
      end
      begin
        from = Time.parse(fromdate)
      rescue ArgumentError
        raise Puppet::Error, _("Error while parsing 'fromdate'")
      end
      # Setting hash's default value to [], needed by the following loop
      bucket = Hash.new { [] }
      msg = ''.dup
      # Get all files with mtime between 'from' and 'to'
      Pathname.new(request.options[:bucket_path]).find { |item|
        next unless item.file? and item.basename.to_s == "paths"

        filenames = item.read.strip.split("\n")
        filestat = Time.parse(item.stat.mtime.to_s)
        next unless from <= filestat and filestat <= to

        filenames.each do |filename|
          bucket[filename] += [[item.stat.mtime, item.parent.basename]]
        end
      }
      # Sort the results
      bucket.each { |_filename, contents|

View on GitHub (pinned to e227c27540)

Solutions

1. Use an explicit format: --fromdate 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS', e.g. '1970-01-01 00:00:00'.
2. Omit --fromdate; it defaults to '0:0:0 1-1-1970' (epoch), which lists everything up to todate.
3. Quote the whole value in the shell.
4. Pre-validate scripted dates with Time.parse in a rescue block.

Example fix

# before
puppet filebucket list --fromdate 2024-13-01 --todate "2024-12-31"
# Error: Error while parsing 'fromdate'

# after
puppet filebucket list --fromdate "2024-01-01 00:00:00" --todate "2024-12-31 23:59:59"

require 'time'

def parseable_date?(value)
  Time.parse(value)
  true
rescue ArgumentError
  false
end

abort 'invalid --fromdate, expected YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' unless parseable_date?(fromdate)

When it happens

Trigger: Passing an unparseable --fromdate to 'puppet filebucket list': values like 'yesturday', '2024-02-30', or fragments of an unquoted date string.

Common situations: Locale-ambiguous or day/month-swapped dates; empty shell variables expanding to nothing or garbage; dates built by string concatenation in wrapper scripts.

Related errors

• Error while parsing 'todate'
• Need exactly two arguments: filebucket diff <file_a> <file_b
• Could not back up %{file}: %{detail}
• Diff is not supported on this platform
• Please provide a file or checksum to diff with

AI-assisted analysis of puppetlabs/puppet@e227c27540 (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fa27da0400fbc7e0. Report an issue: GitHub.