Puppet Blog - Page 12

Looking for more device management? Read about it here: Managing F5 BIG-IP Network Devices with Puppet Puppet 2.7.0 was recently released. This version, like every new Puppet release, brings numerous new features (and not counting bug fixes), including one I’m very proud of: Network Device Management. This all started during the Puppet Camp Europe 2010 […]

Parameterized classes are a huge step forward in the Puppet language. They allow configurations to be composed as a collection of well-defined interfaces, expose those interfaces to introspection, and eliminate any order dependencies commonly encountered with dynamic scoping and include. Below, I will share my experiences and thoughts about how to model configurations with parameterized […]

This follows on from my previous post on Faces and starts to break down the components that make up the Faces system. The fundamental components here are: Facades – the ways you can interact with your Faces and Actions. Faces – these represent a coherent subsystem, or modelled object or entity. Actions – these represent […]

The goal of this design pattern is to keep configurable data in one place and make it friendly to an ENC. This addresses the problem of module reusability. If you have are keeping data in your module, then someone else cannot just reuse your module without making changes to the code. This pattern solves that […]

Mac Inventory/Warranty Lookups with MCollective Maintaining an accurate inventory of all of your machines is an oft-neglected evil for IT staff. Knowing when a machine was purchased and, more importantly, if it’s still under warranty is often overlooked until something malfunctions. Most vendors provide a way to access the machine’s serial number programmatically, and many […]

Upgrading Puppet can be a long and involved process, particularly when skipping major versions. New language features are a included in each Puppet major version release. These changes, however, mean that upgrading Puppet is not a simple matter of installing a new package. The Puppet master should be upgraded to the new version first, then […]

DEPRECATION NOTICE: This article is no longer relevant and exists for historical purposes only. The Ruby DSL was an experimental project that added the ability to write Puppet code in pure Ruby. It was never widely adopted and was eventually completely removed in Puppet 4.0. The new Ruby DSL for Puppet (available in 2.6.0 and […]

As Puppet Camp draws closer, many of you are inevitably balancing the costs and benefits of attending camp. Perhaps you don’t want to lose a few days at the office, or maybe the flight and hotel fees have you worried. Here are some helpful points that will help alleviate any concerns you might have, and […]

I’ve reached in and plucked out the last men’s medium, the smalls have been gone for months, I overstocked on XXLs and there’s a rumor around these parts that they might get tied together to make a hammock. Yes folks, it’s true, we’re out of t-shirts. Like its predecessor “Because SSH and a ‘for’ loop […]

Puppet Camp Europe 2011 will be held in the capital of the Netherlands (also known as “the Venice of the North”): Amsterdam. A land where people eat cheese and wear clogs, and vehicles with more than two wheels are outlawed, right? Amsterdam is a city with lots of things to see and do, but also […]

We are proud to announce that Puppet version 2.6.2 has been released! The 2.6.2 release is a maintenance release in the 2.6.x branch and represents the current stable release version for Puppet. In addition we’ve provided a small number of new and enhanced features that you can see in its release notes. You can download […]

In facter part 1 we showed how to use facter, as well as how to create custom facts using ruby and environment variables. In this post, we will go into further details how to test, distribute custom facts in your environment whether you are using puppet standalone or in master/agent mode. As a refresher, here’s […]

With the release of facter 1.5.8, it is a great opportunity to revisit this utility and review how it works in conjunction with Puppet. This is a multi-part blog post that will progressively dive deeper into facter and writing custom facts for puppet. Facter is a standalone tool based on Ruby that provides system information […]