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Questions tagged [puppet]

Puppet is a configuration management tool (Unix & Windows) with its own Domain Specific Language.

Puppet is a configuration management tool for Unix and Windows. It works either standalone mode (puppet apply) or in client-server mode (puppet agent) with puppet agents running on client systems checking in with the master daemon on the server on a regular basis. Puppet's written in ruby, and puppet source code, i.e. puppet manifests, uses its own domain-specific language that focuses on declaring the system resources and it's intended state.

Combined with system provisioning tools (PXE, kickstart, FAI, etc), puppet can fully automate any software installation and configuration process that doesn't require a GUI interface.

More info:

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How can the little guys effectively learn and use Puppet?

Six months ago, in our not-for-profit project we decided to start migrating our system management to a Puppet-controlled environment because we are expecting our number of servers to grow substantially between now and a year from now. Since the…
drumfire
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Why use Chef/Puppet over shell scripts?

New to Puppet and Chef tools. Seems like the job that they are doing can be done with shell scripting. Maybe it was done in shell scripts until these came along. I would agree they are more readable. But, are there any other advantages over shell…
resting
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Why is it so difficult to upgrade between major versions of Red Hat and CentOS?

"Can we upgrade our existing production EL5 servers to EL6?" A simple-sounding request from two customers with completely different environments prompted my usual best-practices answer of "yes, but it will require a coordinated rebuild of all of…
ewwhite
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What should NOT be managed by puppet?

I'm learning my way through configuration management in general and using puppet to implement it in particular, and I'm wondering what aspects of a system, if any, should not be managed with puppet? As an example we usually take for granted that…
Luke404
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automate dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

I'm using puppet to admin a cluster of debian servers. I need to change the timezone of each machine on the cluster. The proper debian way to do this is to use dpkg-reconfigure tzdata. But I can only seem to change it if I use the dialog. Is…
razor
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Puppet vs Chef, pro and contra from users and use cases

I already googled and read the "to-puppet-or-to-chef-that-is-the-question" article. I'm interested in use cases, real world implementations in which people had choosen one or the other on real problems bases. I'm particularly interested in…
drAlberT
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What advantages/features does Puppet or Chef offer over Salt (or vice versa)?

I am looking at rolling out a new configuration management tool to replace our home-grown solution. The defacto standards are Chef and Puppet, both of which are Ruby-centric (though can be used to deploy non-Ruby environment, obviously). The vast…
jamieb
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Could not find class, and yet it is there

When doing a puppet agent call from a new image, I'm getting a err: Could not find class custommod error. The module itself is in /etc/puppet/modules/custommod same as all of the other modules we're calling, but this one is obstinante. [site.pp]…
sysadmin1138
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Do chef and puppet cost money?

I intend to use chef or puppet to do administration (I'm thinking more of chef as it's younger and I get a better feeling about it). In both home pages I saw there is an "enterprise edition" that costs money and I don't intend to buy anything. What…
Jas
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Are configuration management tools (Puppet, Chef) capable of keeping installed packages up to date?

This is probably a simple question for those of you already running configuration management tools. Are configuration management tools such as Puppet or Chef the right approach for keeping installed packages up to date? Suppose I run a number of…
daff
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How can a Linux Administrator improve their shell scripting and automation skills?

In my organization, I work with a group of NOC staff, budding junior engineers and a handful of senior engineers; all with a focus on Linux. One interesting step in the way the company grows talent is that there's a path from the NOC to the senior…
ewwhite
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Have a system that expires SSH keys every 90th day

I have a customer that now requires us to change every password every 90th day due to their interpretation of GDPR. That's fine for the web-based system we develop for them because we can just implement those rules. But they also require us to…
mr D
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How to update a package using puppet and a .deb file

I am trying to figure out the proper way to update/upgrade a deb package using puppet from a local source deb file. My current config looks like this... class adobe-air-2-0-4 { file { "/opt/air-debs": ensure => directory } file {…
delux247
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Adding a yum repo to puppet before doing anything else

Is there a way to force puppet to do certain things first? For instance, I need it to install an RPM on all servers to add a yum repository (IUS Community) before I install any of the packages.
Jon Haddad
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Puppet Security and Network Topologies

Background: I am finally setting aside some time to join the 21st Century and look at Puppet. As it stands today we version control all server configurations in a repository that is held internally at the office. When an update needs making, the…
Dan Carley
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