Install PE

Installing Puppet Enterprise (PE) sets up a standard installation you can use to try out PE with up to 10 nodes or to manage up to 4,000 nodes. From there, you can scale up to the large or extra-large installation as your infrastructure grows, or customize your configuration as needed.

A standard PE installation consists of the following components installed on a single node:
  • The primary server: The central hub of activity. It is where Puppet code is compiled to create agent catalogs and where SSL certificates are verified and signed.
  • The console: The graphical web user interface. It has configuration and reporting tools.
  • PuppetDB: The data store for data generated throughout your Puppet infrastructure.
Important: The primary server can only run on a *nix machine. However, Windows machines can be Puppet agents, and you can manage them with your *nix primary server. Furthermore, you can operate your *nix primary server remotely from a Windows machine. To do this, before you install PE on your *nix primary server, you must configure an SSH client (such as PuTTY) with the hostname or IP address and port of the *nix machine that you'll use as your primary server. When you open an SSH session to install PE on the *nix primary server, log in as root or use sudo.

Install PE

The Puppet Enterprise (PE) installer uses default settings to install PE infrastructure components on a single node. After installing, you can scale or customize your installation as needed.

Before you begin

Review the Hardware requirements for standard installations to make sure your system capacity can handle the standard PE installation.

Log in as root on your target primary server. If you're installing on a system that doesn't allow root login, you must use sudo su - to complete these steps.

  1. Download the tarball appropriate to your operating system and architecture.
    Tip: To download packages from the command line, run wget --content-disposition <URL> or curl -JLO <URL>, using the URL for the tarball you want to download.
  2. To unpack the installation tarball, run: 
    tar -xf <TARBALL_FILENAME>
  3. From the installer directory, run ./puppet-enterprise-installer and follow the CLI instructions to complete the installation.
  4. Optional: Restart the shell to use client tool commands.
What to do next
After completing the standard installation, you can scale or customize your installation, if needed. For information and requirements for large and extra-large installations, go to Supported architectures and System requirements. You can use Configuration parameters and the pe.conf file to customize your installation.

Log in to the PE console

The Puppet Enterprise (PE) console is a graphical interface where you can manage your infrastructure without relying on the command line.

To log in for the first time:
  1. Open the console by entering the URL <PRIMARY_HOSTNAME> into your browser. The hostname is your primary server's trusted certificate name.
    Note: You'll receive a browser warning about an untrusted certificate because you were the signing authority for the console's certificate, and your PE deployment is not known to your browser as a valid signing authority. Ignore this warning and accept the certificate.
  2. On the console login page, log in with the username admin and the password you created when installing. Keep track of this login because you'll need it later.
What to do next
Next, check your primary server's status.

Check the status of your primary server

You can run a task in the console to check your primary server's status.

A task is a single action that allows you to do ad-hoc things like upgrade packages and restart services on target machines. Puppet Enterprise (PE) comes with a few tasks installed, such as package, service, and puppet_conf, and you can download more tasks from the Forge or write your own.
  1. In the console, in the Orchestration section, click Tasks.
  2. Click Run a task in the upper right corner of the Tasks page.
  3. In the Task field, select service because you are checking the status of the primary server service.
  4. Optional: In the Job description field, provide a description. The text you enter here appears on the job list and job details pages.
  5. Under Task parameters, enter parameters and values for the task. The service task has two required parameters. For action, choose status. For name, enter puppet.
  6. Under Select targets, select Node list.
    1. In the Inventory nodes field, add your primary server's hostname and select it.
  7. Click Run task or Schedule job.
    Your task run appears on the Tasks page. To rerun the task, click Run again and choose to rerun the task on all nodes or only the nodes that failed during the initial run.
    Tip: You can filter run results by task name to find specific task runs.
Results

View the task status and output on the Jobs page after the task is finished running.

Confirm that your primary server's status is running and enabled.

What to do next

Next, use the console to Add nodes to the inventory.

To learn more about tasks, including how to install them from the Forge and how to write your own tasks, go to Installing tasks and Writing tasks.