Welcome to the Puppet reference manual. Use the navigation to the left to get around.

What is this?

For an introduction to how Puppet manages systems, see the Overview of Puppet’s Architecture.

Getting started

Puppet 4.10 consists of:

• A puppet-agent “All-in-One” package that installs Puppet, Ruby, Facter, Hiera, and supporting code.
• A puppetserver package that installs Puppet Server.
• A puppetdb package that installs PuppetDB.

To install these, read the pre-install instructions, then see the Puppet installation guides for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.

Upgrading from Puppet 3

Puppet 4 changes many things about how Puppet works, and you must be careful when upgrading from Puppet 3. We’ve made four guides to help walk you through the upgrade process:

1. Prepare for the upgrade by following the pre-upgrade guide, which covers how to update and move your site’s configuration files to Puppet 4’s revised standards.

2. Follow our step-by-step instructions to upgrade Puppet Server.

3. You need to take a few steps before upgrading your Puppet 3 agents. We’ve created a special Puppet module, puppet_agent, to help; check out the Puppet agent major upgrade documentation for details.

4. After the upgrade, confirm that everything’s working and clean up your configuration with the post-upgrade guide.

Updating from earlier versions of Puppet 4

If you’re already running Puppet 4, the minor upgrade guide can help you update Puppet across your infrastructure.

Getting around

This manual is split into several sections, which can be reached from the left sidebar. A few notable pages:

• The Release Notes cover what’s new and different in this version of Puppet.
• If you’re an experienced Puppet user who’s new to Puppet 4, review the Where Did Everything Go? page.
• Use the Resource Type Reference for up-to-date information on core Puppet concepts.
• Puppet uses its own configuration language, which is documented in this reference’s language section. You can start with:
  • The Language Summary, which gives an overview and some context for the language.
  • The Visual Index, which can help you find docs for syntax when you know what it looks like but don’t know what it’s called.
  • Updating 3.x Manifests for Puppet 4.x, if you’re experienced with Puppet and want to focus on new and changed features.
• The Modules Fundamentals guide explains how to organize Puppet manifests, install pre-built modules from the Puppet Forge, and share your own modules.