Puppet is a configuration management tool which allows easy deployment and configuration ranging from 1 to 1 thousand servers (and even more). Even though its common knowledge for devops, puppet is still a strange piece of software for developers. How does it work and what can it do for you as a developer?

1. Puppet for
Dummies
ZendCon - October 2011
Santa Clara - United States
http://joind.in/3781

2. Who am I?
Joshua Thijssen
Senior Software Engineer @ Enrise (Netherlands)
Development in PHP, Python, Perl, C, Java,
and System & DB admin.
Blog: http://adayinthelifeof.nl
Email: joshua@enrise.com
Twitter: @jaytaph
http://www.flickr.com/photos/akrabat/5422369749/in/photostream/

3. Joind.in
‣ http://joind.in/3781

4. The question of the day

5. The question of the day
What is puppet and why should I care?

6. Why should I care?
“People are finally figuring out puppet
and how it gets you to the pub by 4pm.
Note that I’ve been at this pub since
2pm.”
- Jorge Castro

7. Why should I care (really)?

8. What is puppet?
Puppet is a (not necessarily the)
solution for the following problem:
How do we setup, manage, synchronize,
and upgrade our internal and external
infrastructure?

9. But isn’t that a sysadmin problem?
Sysadmin!
Y U no fix problem!

10. But isn’t that a sysadmin problem?
Sysadmin!
Y U no fix problem!
NO

11. What is puppet?
LAMP-stack

12. What is puppet?
Linux
PHP
LAMP-stack
Apache
MySQL

13. What is puppet?
LAMPGMVNMCSTRAH-stack

14. What is puppet?
Hadoop MongoDB
ActiveMQ
Gearman Linux
Varnish
Tika PHP
LAMPGMVNMCSTRAH-stack
Solr
Apache Ngnix CouchDB
Redis Memcache MySQL

15. How do we manage our infrastructure?

16. How do we manage our infrastructure?
‣ Solution 1: We don’t,

17. How do we manage our infrastructure?
‣ Solution 1: We don’t,
‣ Solution 2: We outsource,

18. How do we manage our infrastructure?
‣ Solution 1: We don’t,
‣ Solution 2: We outsource,
‣ Solution 3: We automate the process.

19. How do we manage our infrastructure? (1)
‣ Solution 1: we don’t

20. How do we manage our infrastructure? (1)
‣ It’s not funny: you find it more often
than not. Especially inside small
development companies.
‣ Solution 1: we don’t

21. How do we manage our infrastructure? (1)
‣ It’s not funny: you find it more often
than not. Especially inside small
development companies.
‣ Internal sysadmin, but he’s too busy
with development to do sysadmin.
‣ Solution 1: we don’t

22. How do we manage our infrastructure? (1)
‣ It’s not funny: you find it more often
than not. Especially inside small
development companies.
‣ Internal sysadmin, but he’s too busy
with development to do sysadmin.
‣ We only act on escalation
‣ Solution 1: we don’t

23. How do we manage our infrastructure? (1)
‣ It’s not funny: you find it more often
than not. Especially inside small
development companies.
‣ Internal sysadmin, but he’s too busy
with development to do sysadmin.
‣ We only act on escalation
‣ reactive, not proactive
‣ Solution 1: we don’t

24. How do we manage our infrastructure? (2)
‣ Solution 2: we outsource

25. How do we manage our infrastructure? (2)
‣ Expensive $LA’s.
‣ Solution 2: we outsource

26. How do we manage our infrastructure? (2)
‣ Expensive $LA’s.
‣ What about INTERNAL servers like
your development systems and
infrastructure?
‣ Solution 2: we outsource

27. How do we manage our infrastructure? (2)
‣ Expensive $LA’s.
‣ What about INTERNAL servers like
your development systems and
infrastructure?
‣ Fight between stability and agility.
‣ Solution 2: we outsource

28. How do we manage our infrastructure? (2)
‣ Expensive $LA’s.
‣ What about INTERNAL servers like
your development systems and
infrastructure?
‣ Fight between stability and agility.
‣ Does your hosting company decide
on whether you can use PHP5.3???
‣ Solution 2: we outsource

29. How do we manage our infrastructure? (3)
‣ Solution 3: we do it ourselves and automate

30. How do we manage our infrastructure? (3)
‣ We are in charge.
‣ Solution 3: we do it ourselves and automate

31. How do we manage our infrastructure? (3)
‣ We are in charge.
‣ You can do what you like
‣ Solution 3: we do it ourselves and automate

32. How do we manage our infrastructure? (3)
‣ We are in charge.
‣ You can do what you like
‣ Use: cfEngine, chef, puppet.
‣ Solution 3: we do it ourselves and automate

33. How do we manage our infrastructure? (3)
‣ We are in charge.
‣ You can do what you like
‣ Use: cfEngine, chef, puppet.
‣ When done right, maintenance
should not be difficult.
‣ Solution 3: we do it ourselves and automate

34. What is puppet?
‣ PUPPET TO THE RESCUE

35. What is puppet?
‣ Open source configuration
management tool.
‣ Written in Ruby
‣ Open source:
https://github.com/puppetlabs
‣ Commercial version available
(puppet enterprise)

36. What is puppet?
¹
‣ Don’t tell HOW to do stuff.
‣ Tell WHAT to do.
¹ It’s not actually true, but good enough for now...

37. What is puppet?
“yum install httpd”
“apt-get install apache2”
¹
‣ Don’t tell HOW to do stuff.
‣ Tell WHAT to do.
“install and run the apache webserver”
¹ It’s not actually true, but good enough for now...

38. Architectural overview

39. Architectural overview
Puppet

40. Architectural overview
Puppet
Puppet CA
Master
https
Puppet
Agent

41. Architectural overview
Puppet
Puppet CA
Master
https
Puppet Puppet Puppet
Agent Agent Agent

42. How does it work
Puppet Puppet
master client

43. How does it work
Check credentials
Puppet Puppet
master client

44. How does it work
Check credentials
Puppet Send facts Puppet
master client

45. How does it work
Check credentials
Puppet Send facts Puppet
master Returns “catalog” client

46. How does it work
Check credentials
Puppet Send facts Puppet
master Returns “catalog” client
Report results

47. Puppet manifests
‣ Manifests are puppet definitions
‣ <filename>.pp
‣ Puppet DSL
‣ De-cla-ra-tive language
‣ Version your manifests! (git/svn)

48. Puppet manifests
package { “strace” :
ensure => present,
}
file { “/home/jaytaph/secret-ingredient.txt” :
ensure => present,
mode => 0600,
user => ‘jaytaph’,
group => ‘noxlogic’,
source => “puppet:///secret.txt”,
}

49. Puppet manifests
package { “httpd” :
ensure => present,
}
service { “httpd”:
running => true,
enable => true,
require => Package[“httpd”],
}
‣ Spot the problem....

50. Puppet manifests
Centos / Redhat
service: httpd
package: httpd
config: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
vhosts: /etc/httpd/conf.d/*.conf
Debian / Ubuntu
service: apache2
package: apache2
config: /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
vhosts: /etc/apache2/sites-available
‣ Different distributions, different names

51. Puppet manifests
package { “webserver”:
case $operatingsystem {
centos, redhat { $apache = “httpd” }
debian, ubuntu { $apache = “apache2” }
default : { fail(‘I don’t know this OS/distro’) }
}
name => $apache,
ensure => installed,
}
‣ $operatingsystem is a FACT

52. Facter
[root@puppetnode1 ~]# facter --puppet
architecture => x86_64
fqdn => puppetnode1.noxlogic.local
interfaces => eth1,eth2,lo
ipaddress_eth1 => 192.168.1.114
ipaddress_eth2 => 192.168.56.200
kernel => Linux
kernelmajversion => 2.6
operatingsystem => CentOS
operatingsystemrelease => 6.0
processor0 => Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz
puppetversion => 2.6.9
‣ A simple list with info (also useable in your own tools)

53. Puppet manifests
/etc/puppet/manifests/site.pp:
node default {
$def_packages = [ “mc”, “strace”, “sysstat” ]
package { $def_packages :
ensure => latest,
}
}
‣ “Main” manifest

54. Puppet manifests
node /^webd+.example.local$/ {
package { “httpd” :
ensure => latest,
}
}
node /^dbd+.example.local$/ {
package { “mysql-server” :
ensure => installed,
}
}
‣ Defining nodes - regular expressions

55. Puppet manifests
node basenode {
user { “jaytaph” :
ensure => present,
gid => 1000,
uid => 1000,
home => “/home/jaytaph”,
shell => “/bin/sh”,
password => “supersecrethashedpassword”,
managehome => true,
}
}
node /^.+.example.local/ inherits basenode {
...
}
‣ Node inheritance

56. Puppet manifests
‣ Group together into a class

57. Puppet manifests
class webserver {
service { “apache”:
ensure => running,
require => Package[“apache”],
}
package { “apache” :
ensure => installed,
}
}
‣ Group together into a class

58. Puppet manifests
class webserver {
service { “apache”:
ensure => running,
require => Package[“apache”],
}
package { “apache” :
ensure => installed,
}
file { “vhost_${webserver_name}” :
path => “/etc/httpd/conf/10-vhost.conf”,
content => template(“vhost.template.erb”),
notify => Service[“httpd”],
}
}
‣ Group together into a class

59. Puppet manifests
vhost.template.erb
<virtualHost <%= ipaddress %>:80>
ServerName <%= webserver_name %>
ServerAlias <%= webserver_alias %>
DocumentRoot <%= webserver_docroot %>
</virtualHost>
‣ ERB Templates can use custom variables and facts

60. Puppet manifests
node “web01.example.local” inherits base {
$webserver_name = “web01.example.local”
$webserver_alias = “www.example.local”
$webserver_docroot = “/var/www/web01”
import webserver
}
node “web02.example.local” inherits base {
$webserver_name = “web02.example.local”
$webserver_alias = “crm.example.local”
$webserver_docroot = “/var/www/web02”
import webserver
}

61. Puppet modules
‣ A puppet module is a collection of
resources, classes, templates.
‣ Used for easy distribution and
code-reuse.
‣ Self-contained, run out-of-the-box

62. Puppet modules
‣ puppetforge / github
‣ Create your own (and share!).
‣ Use the ones from puppet
enterprise edition.
‣ Use the standard layout / best
practices

63. Puppet modules
class ntp::install {
package{"ntpd":
ensure => latest
}
}
class ntp::config {
File{
require => Class["ntp::install"],
notify => Class["ntp::service"],
owner => "root",
group => "root",
mode => 644
}
file{"/etc/ntp.conf":
source => "puppet:///ntp/ntp.conf";
"/etc/ntp/step-tickers":
source => "puppet:///ntp/step-tickers";
}
}
class ntp::service {
service{"ntp":
ensure => running,
enable => true,
require => Class["ntp::config"],
}
}
class ntp {
include ntp::install, ntp::config, ntp::service
}

64. Test your modules
‣ (Unit)test your modules
‣ Test them with:
puppet apply --noop
‣ More advanced testing: cucumber /
cucumber-puppet (BDD)

65. What can puppet manage
‣ Almost everything.
‣ standard 48 different resource types
‣ Ranging from “file” to “cron” to
“ssh_key” to “user” to “selinux”.
‣ Can control your Cisco routers and
windows machines too (sortakinda)
‣ http://docs.puppetlabs.com/references/stable/type.html

66. Confusing puppet things

67. Confusing puppet things
‣ Puppet went from v0.25 to v2.6.
‣ REST interface since 2.6. XMLRPC
before that.
‣ One binary to rule them all (puppet).
‣ Puppet v2.7 switched from GPLv2 to
apache2.0 license.

68. Confusing puppet things
‣ --test does not mean dry-run!
(--noop does).
‣ It’s not object oriented. (puppet
class != php class)
‣ It’s a declarative language.

69. Puppet dashboards
http://media.techtarget.com/digitalguide/images/Misc/puppetDashboard.gif

70. Puppet dashboards
http://media.techtarget.com/digitalguide/images/Misc/puppetDashboard.gif

71. Live demo | MCollective?

72. MCollective
‣ Puppet agent “calls” the master every 30
minutes.
‣ But what about realtime command & control?
‣ “Puppet kick”... (meh)
‣ MCollective (Marionette Collective)

73. MCollective
‣ Which systems running a database
and have 16GB or less?
‣ Which systems are using <50% of
available memory?
‣ Restart all apache services in
timezone GMT+5.
‣ How do we handle large number of nodes?

74. MCollective
Client Middleware Node
MCollective
Server
MCollective
Client ACTIVEMQ
Server
MCollective
Server
Collective
‣ Middleware takes care of distribution,
‣ queued, broadcast etc..

75. MCollective
‣ The collective
http://docs.puppetlabs.com/mcollective/reference/basic/subcollectives.html

76. MCollective
$ mc-facts operatingsystem
Report for fact: operatingsystem
CentOS found 3 times
Debian found 14 times
Solaris found 4 times
$ mc-facts -W operatingsystem=Centos operatingsystemrelease
Report for fact: operatingsystemrelease
6.0 found 1 times
5.6 found 2 times
‣ Filter out nodes based on facts

77. MCollective - cool stuff
‣ Display all running processes
‣ Run or deploy software
‣ Restart services
‣ Start puppet agent
‣ Upgrade your systems

78. Recap
-ETOOMUCHINFO
Let’s recap

79. Recap (1)
‣ Configuration management tool.
‣ Focusses on “what” instead of “how”.
‣ Scales from 1 to 100K+ systems.
‣ Uses descriptive manifests.

80. Recap (2)
‣ Useful for sysadmins and developers.
‣ Keeps your infrastructure in sync.
‣ Keeps your infrastructure versioned.
‣ MCollective controls your hosts
based on facts, not names.

81. Any questions?
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/73/163450213_18478d3aa6_d.jpg

82. to remove this comic sans font, please rate my talk on:
http://joind.in/3781