I can’t replicate this. Can you show us the full output from just that resource?

My resource:

 package { "moneta":
  ensure      => "latest",
  provider    => "gem",
  source      => "http://mylocalrepo/gem-repository/",
}

I see with in the gem installed

debug: Prefetching gem resources for package
debug: Puppet::Type::Package::ProviderGem: Executing '/usr/bin/gem list --local'
debug: Puppet::Type::Package::ProviderGem: Executing '/usr/bin/gem list --remote moneta$'

Without the gem installed:

debug: Puppet::Type::Package::ProviderGem: Executing '/usr/bin/gem list --local'
debug: Puppet::Type::Package::ProviderGem: Executing '/usr/bin/gem list --local moneta$'
debug: Package[moneta](provider=gem): Executing '/usr/bin/gem install --include-dependencies --source http://mylocalrepo/gem-repository/ moneta'
err: /Stage[main]//Package[moneta]/ensure: change from absent to latest failed: Could not update: Execution of '/usr/bin/gem install --include-dependencies --source http://mylocalrepo/gem-repository/ moneta' returned 1: ERROR:  Could not find a valid gem 'moneta' (>= 0) in any repository
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::RemoteFetcher::FetchError)
    SocketError: getaddrinfo: nodename nor servname provided, or not known (http://mylocalrepo/gem-repository/latest_specs.4.8.gz)
INFO:  `gem install -y` is now default and will be removed
INFO:  use --ignore-dependencies to install only the gems you list
 at /tmp/gem.pp:5

It logically fails because the local gem source doesn’t exist but the correct command is run.

Many thanks for the quick reply. Ok, so here is the story. I maintain this gems in my custom repository, and I want puppet to update the gem on the box, once I’ve pushed a new version of gem to the repo. The box has 0.6.1 version of gem installed currently. I’ve pushed 0.6.2 version to the repo. The public repository contains “official” 0.6.0 version. When I declare package with my custom repo as a source and say “ensure => latest”, I expect puppet to run: /usr/bin/gem list --remote --source http://mylocalrepo/gem-repository/ moneta$ and get my new 0.6.2 custom version as latest, but instead of that I can see /usr/bin/gem list --remote moneta$ which pulls latest version from the public repo (0.6.0) and I am getting downgrade 0.6.1 –> 0.6.0 Here is the part of the output I am getting

debug: Puppet::Type::Package::ProviderGem: Executing '/usr/bin/gem list --remote moneta$'
debug: /Stage[main]/Trocla/Package[moneta]/ensure: moneta ["0.6.1"] is installed, latest is "0.6.0"
notice: /Stage[main]/Trocla/Package[moneta]/ensure: current_value 0.6.1, should be 0.6.0 (noop)

but I expect

current_value 0.6.1, should be 0.6.2 (noop)

As the 2.7.x line is winding down, I am removing the target at 2.7.x from tickets in the system. The 2.7 line should only receive fixes for major problems (crashes, for instance) or security problems.

15346 dealt with similar behavior about the wrong gem repositories being used when installing, and the changes solved this problem as well. I am marking this ticket as a duplicate.¶