global section parameters are sorted alphabetically, breaking order-dependent directives

[maxadamo]

Describe the Bug

The global section of haproxy-base.cfg.epp renders configuration parameters sorted alphabetically. This breaks HAProxy directives that require a specific ordering to take effect.

A concrete example: tune.lua.bool-sample-conversion must appear before any lua-load or lua-load-per-thread directive. Because l sorts before t, lua-load is always rendered first, causing HAProxy to silently ignore tune.lua.bool-sample-conversion with the following warning:

config : parsing [/etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg:9] : ignored as some Lua was loaded already.
"tune.lua.bool-sample-conversion" must be set before any "lua-load" or
"lua-load-per-thread" directive for it to be considered.

This is a silent misconfiguration — HAProxy starts without error, but the tunable has no effect.

Expected Behavior

The module should either preserve the order in which parameters are supplied in the hash, or provide a mechanism to control ordering explicitly. Alphabetical sorting should not silently override HAProxy's own directive ordering requirements.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Configure the haproxy class with both tune.lua.bool-sample-conversion and lua-load in the global parameters hash
2. Apply the Puppet catalog
3. Inspect the rendered /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg — lua-load appears before tune.lua.bool-sample-conversion due to alphabetical sorting
4. Restart HAProxy and observe the warning in the logs

Workaround

Prepending a space to the key name forces it to sort before l:

{ ' tune.lua.bool-sample-conversion' => 'normal' },
{ 'lua-load' => '/etc/haproxy/lua/cors.lua' },

This is clearly unintended use of the API and fragile — it relies on ASCII sort order of whitespace preceding letters.

Suggested Fix

Make sorting optional. A sort_global_params parameter defaulting to true would preserve backward compatibility while allowing users to opt out when directive ordering matters:

class { 'haproxy':
  sort_global_params => false,
  global_options => {
    'tune.lua.bool-sample-conversion' => 'normal',
    'lua-load'                        => '/etc/haproxy/lua/cors.lua',
  }
}

Alternatively, preserving insertion order by default (since Ruby hashes are ordered since 1.9) would be a simpler fix with no API change required.

Environment

• puppetlabs-haproxy version: 8.2.0
• HAProxy version: 3.2
• Platform: Ubuntu 24.04
• Puppet version: 8.x

Additional Context

The alphabetical sort is implemented in haproxy-base.cfg.epp line 2. Other HAProxy directives may have similar ordering requirements — this is not specific to Lua. The fix should be general rather than special-casing individual directives.