Using the inventory, you can manage nodes without installing the Puppet agent on them. The inventory stores node information securely and makes nodes available in the console through SSH or WinRM remote connections.
After you add credentials to the inventory, authorized users can run tasks on these nodes without re-entering credentials. On the Tasks page, these nodes appear in the same list of targets as nodes that have agents installed.
Add nodes to the inventory
Add nodes that don't have the Puppet agent installed to the inventory so you can run tasks on them.
Before you begin
Make sure you have the permission Nodes: Add and delete connection information from
inventory service.
Note: The
Connections tab was added
in the PE 2019.1.1
release. If you are using version 2019.1.0 or
older, see the Node inventory API docs for
instructions on how to add or delete a connection,
or upgrade to the newest version of PE.
- In the console, click Inventory.
- Select a transport method.
- SSH for *nix targets
- WinRM for Windows targets
- Enter target host names and the credentials required to access them. If you use an SSH key, include begin and end tags.
- Optional: Select additional target options. For example, to add a target port number, select Target Port from the drop-down list, enter the number, and click Add. For details, see Transport configuration options, below.
- Click Add nodes.
Transport configuration options
A list of transport configuration options for SSH and WinRM transports.
Target options for SSH transport
| Option | Definition |
|---|---|
| Target port | Connection port. Default is 22. |
| Connection time-out in seconds | The length of time PE should wait when establishing connections. |
| Run as another user | After login, the user name to use for running commands. |
| Temporary directory | The directory to use when uploading temporary files to the target. |
| Sudo password | Password to use when changing users via run-as. |
| Process request as tty | Enable text terminal allocation. |
Target options for WinRM transport
| Option | Definition |
|---|---|
| Target port | Connection port. Default is 5986, or 5985 if ssl: false |
| Connection time-out in seconds | The length of time PE should wait when establishing connections. |
| Temporary directory | The directory to use when uploading temporary files to the target. |
| Acceptable file extension | List of file extensions that are accepted for scripts or tasks. Scripts with
these file extensions rely on the target node's file type association to run. For
example, if Python is installed on the system, a .py script should
run with python.exe. The extensions .ps1,
.rb, and .pp are always allowed and run via
hard-coded executables. |
Remove nodes from the inventory
Remove a node from the inventory from the Connections tab on its details page.
Before you begin
Make sure you have the permission Nodes: Add and delete connection information from
inventory service.
Note: The
Connections tab was added
in the PE 2019.1.1
release. If you are using version 2019.1.0 or
older, see the Node inventory API docs for
instructions on how to add or delete a connection,
or upgrade to the newest version of PE.
- On the Overview or Nodes page, find the node whose connection you want to remove, and click its name to open its details page.
- Click Connections.
- Click Remove connection. The exact name of the link varies depending on the node's connection type: Remove SSH Connection, Remove WinRM connection, or similar.
- Confirm that you want to remove the connection.
node-ttl) and then purges the node when it reaches its node-purge time-to-live limit (node-purge-ttl). At this point the node no longer appears in the console, and the node's license is freed up.Tip: For more information about
node-ttl and node-purge-ttl settings, see the PE docs for database settings.