pfsense_dhcp_static does not normalize hardware addresses in static entries causing duplicate entries

[khsater]

Describe the bug
If you provide the same mapping to pfsense_dhcp_static using capitalized and non-capitalized letters, both mappings will be added. This will cause Kea to fail to start.

Expected behavior
pfsense_dhcp_static should normalize hardware addresses to lower case which is the case used in Kea.

Playbook
Please paste a minimal playbook to reproduce the issue:

• name: Create DHCP static mapping
  pfsense_dhcp_static:
  name: "test"
  macaddr: "aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa"
  ipaddr: "192.168.1.10"
  state: present
• name: Create DHCP static mapping
  pfsense_dhcp_static:
  name: "test"
  macaddr: "AA:AA:AA:AA:AA:AA"
  ipaddr: "192.168.1.10"
  state: present

Output
Not relevant - OK response.

Environment

• What version of pfsensible.core?
  0.7.1
• What version of ansible?
  2.20.3
• What version of pfSense?
  Community - 2.8.1-RELEASE

Additional context
This seems like something they should fix in Kea and pfsense (warn and ignore instead of error or prevent insertion, respectively), but let's fix pfsensible as well. Happy to do this when I have an hour or two.

[khsater]

Notes from working on this:

• pfsense re-formats MAC address values as lowercase through the web interface when saving static DHCP entries. We should copy that behavior.
• There are two options: coerce the macddr parameter to lowercase or fail validation on a non-lowercase string. In the former case, we also have to handle checking for existing entries via a same-cased comparison.
• It would perhaps be preferable to have a parent or helper class handle value validation at a higher level. I imagine there may be a single format for things like mac addresses used across pfsense.
• True story - because of a series of specific and unfortunate events, this bug meant that I had to repair my DHCP server in order to enter my garage and leave for an appointment. Technology is a bitch sometimes.

[opoplawski]

I would vote for automatically lower casing MAC addresses and comparing that way. And yes, a comparison function in the pfsense module probably makes sense.

Sorry for the trouble!

[khsater]

It was funny more than anything - no worries. Software has bugs.

I could use a hint to fix this in my fork. Is it acceptable to modify the 'params' property's values? I haven't been able to determine if that ends up modifying the original parameter or just a copy internal to the module.

[opoplawski]

We don't modify params, but rather manipulate as needed when populating obj from params.