Rudder

Complete script that returns the issue :
@[ -r /etc/update-motd.d/lsb-release ] && . /etc/update-motd.d/lsb-release

if [ -z "$DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION" ] && [ -x /usr/bin/lsb_release ]; then
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=$(lsb_release -s -d)
fi

re='(.*\()(.*)(\).*)'
if [[ $DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION =~ $re ]]; then
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=$(printf "%s%s%s%s%s" "${BASH_REMATCH¹}" "${BASH_REMATCH²}" "${BASH_REMATCH³}")
fi

echo -e " "$DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION "(kernel "$(uname -r)")\n"

printf "DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=\"%s\"" "$(lsb_release -s -d)" > /etc/update-motd.d/lsb-release &@

Complete modified script that is working

@[ -r /etc/update-motd.d/lsb-release ] && . /etc/update-motd.d/lsb-release

if [ -z "$DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION" ] && [ -x /usr/bin/lsb_release ]; then
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=$(lsb_release -s -d)
fi

re='(.*\()(.*)(\).*)'
REMATCH="${BASH_REMATCH¹}" "${BASH_REMATCH²}" "${BASH_REMATCH³}"
if [[ $DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION =~ $re ]]; then DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=$(printf "%s%s%s%s%s" $REMATCH) fi

echo -e " "$DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION "(kernel "$(uname -r)")\n"

printf "DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="%s"" "$(lsb_release -s -d)" > /etc/update-motd.d/lsb-release &@

• You match the whole string by just splitting it at the parenthesis: re='(.*\()(.*)(\).*)'
• Then you simply concatenate it using printf which should give you the exact same string.

Moreover, please note that in your non working example, you are calling printf with 5 %s whereas you only give 3 parameters.

• you are calling printf with 5 %s and you give it an undefined number of parameters (4 for a debian)
• the REMATCH variable should be empty since it is created before BASH_REMATCH exists since the if match is done on the line below

Hi, it seems that you are trying to write this script down to a given file using Rudder.
This is definitely possible and should not lead to any missing report, so what happens here is:

Rudder has its own variable system, they are used with the syntax "${...}" (or for old compatibility "$(...)").
So when trying to write down your script, Rudder thinks that your lines using one of these patterns are call to Rudder variables that are not yet defined and so,
because of the logic of the rudder-agent, in this specific case, will skip the complete application of your configuration since its only content (the text block that you are trying to
enforce) is not fully defined.

This skip mechanism is not a common case and should not happen in most cases.

So, to be sure that Rudder will not try to interpret your bash variables you can use some Rudder special variables dedicated to this cases: https://docs.rudder.io/reference/6.0/reference/variables.html
The special variable to write down a "$" can be used with "${const.dollar}" and should be used almost everytime your are using a "$" sign which is not intended to call a Rudder variable.

Replacing all your "${<something>}" and "$(<something else>)" by "${const.dollar}{<something>}" and "${const.dollar}(<something else>)" should do the trick and fix your issue.
Try replacing your input by:

[ -r /etc/update-motd.d/lsb-release ] && . /etc/update-motd.d/lsb-release

if [ -z "$DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION" ] && [ -x /usr/bin/lsb_release ]; then
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=${const.dollar}(lsb_release -s -d)
fi

re='(.*\()(.*)(\).*)'
if [[ $DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION =~ $re ]]; then
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=${const.dollar}(printf "%s%s%s%s%s" "${const.dollar}{BASH_REMATCH1}" "${const.dollar}{BASH_REMATCH2}" "${const.dollar}{BASH_REMATCH3}")
fi

echo -e " "$DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION "(kernel "${const.dollar}(uname -r)")\n" 

printf "DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="%s"" "${const.dollar}(lsb_release -s -d)" > /etc/update-motd.d/lsb-release &

And tell me if it worked as expected

for Benoit comment, this is correct the printf was wrong, and also this code was not executed anyway so i removed it. Anyway the issue is not the script itself since it is working if i put the exact same thing even with the error in the code directly on the server without using Rudder.

for Félix comment, i tried your suggestion but same issue. seems to be a combination of special characters in this line that is causing the issue but i did not figure out which one.

I just removed this line, but if you want to debug just add a new step to create a file and put this specific line
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=$(printf "%s%s%s%s%s" "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}" "${BASH_REMATCH[2]}" "${BASH_REMATCH[3]}") even if code point of view it will do nothing, it is supposed to fill the file without any issue because for Rudder it is a simple file.

thanks for your support.