Puppet validate_json_schema function
A few projects ago we had a JSON app with quite a fiddly config file that was undergoing rapid iteration. Although we never deployed an invalid JSON config we hit a couple of snags with config files...
View ArticleIntroducing the Deprecate function
A fair while ago I wrote aDeprecation Warnings From Puppet Resources blog post and metaparameter for adding expiry information to your manifests -file { '/ec/cron.d/remove_foos':ensure =>...
View ArticleNo symbolic file modes - puppet-lint check
Modern versions of Puppet allow you to specify the mode of a file resource in one of two ways, either as a traditional octal value or the (newer addition) symbolic file modes. Although these may seem...
View ArticleDuplicate class parameters check for puppet-lint
In versions of Puppet under 3.8.5 it’s been possible to have the same parameter name specified multiple times in a class definition without error. Although allowed it was a little misleading as only...
View ArticleNo cron resources - customisable puppet-lint check
Sometimes there are certain puppet resource types that you don’t want to include in your code base. In my case it was cron but in yours it could be the more line originated augeas or the horribly named...
View ArticleYumrepo gpgcheck puppet-lint check
The most recent in my recent series of puppet-lint plugins, theyumrepo gpgcheck enabled check, will mostly be of interest to security conscious Linux users who use ayum or dnf based package manager. In...
View ArticlePuppet-lint world writable files check
On a *nix system a world writable file is one that anyone can write to. This is often undesirable, especially in production, where who can write to certain files should be limited and enabled with...
View ArticlePuppet integration tests in (about) seven minutes
While puppet-lint and rspec-puppet (thanks to Tim Sharpe) will help ensure your Puppet code is both clean and produces what you’d expect in the compiled catalog there are times when you’ll want to go...
View ArticleSpecialising validate_re with wrapper functions in Puppet
Once your puppet code base reaches a certain size you’ll often have a number of validate_ functions testing parameters and configuration values for compliance with local rules and requirements. These...
View ArticlePuppet Lint 2.0 Upgrade
With the recentpuppet-lint 2.0 release it seemed a good time to bump the version we use at $WORK and see what’d changed. In theory it was as simple as changing the version in ourGemfile and ideally...
View ArticlePuppet Lint Plugins - 2.0 Upgrade and new repo
After the recentpuppet-lint 2.0 release and the success of our puppet-lint 2.0 upgrade at work it felt like the right moment to claw some time back and update my own (11!) puppet-lint plugins to allow...
View ArticleRemoving 'magic numbers' and times from your Puppet manifests
In a large Puppet code base you’ll eventually end up with a scattering of time based ‘magic numbers‘ such as cache expiry numbers, zone file ttls and recurring job schedules. You’ll typically find...
View ArticleAnnouncing multi_epp - Puppet function
As part of refreshing my old puppet modules I’ve started to convert some of my Puppet templates from the older ERB format to the newer, and hopefully safer,Embedded Puppet (EPP).While it’s been a...
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Testing multiple Puppet versions with TravicCI (and allowing failures)
When it comes to running automated tests of my public Puppet codeTravisCI has long been my favourite solution. It’s essentially a zero infrastructure, second pair of eyes, on all my changes. It also...
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Managing multiple puppet modules with modulesync
With the exception of children, puppies and medical compliance frameworks managing one of something is normally much easier than managing a lot of them. If you have a lot of puppet modules, and you’ll...
View ArticleStand Alone Puppet
While Puppet can be used to manage large, complex environments it’s also a useful tool at the lower end of the spectrum. Using just the puppet executable and a small inline class or two you can write...
View ArticleSimplifying File Permissions in Puppet Manifests
I’ve been a user of Puppet for about three years now and while on a recent dig in to some of my older classes it was a little embarrassing to see lots of file types used like this: file {...
View ArticleMCollective Plugin - FileMD5er
I’ve been watching the Marionette Collective for a while, and even gave it a small trial in a couple of testing environments, but this weekend was the first time I’ve experimented with it at a slightly...
View ArticlePuppet CookBook is live
Between Xmas and New Year I had some spare time to invest on a side project I’ve been looking forward to working on for quite a while. I’m pleased to announce the opening of the Puppet CookBook. I’ve...
View ArticleClarifying With Facter
While adopting a configuration management tool like Chef and Puppet will have a large, nearly immediate, effect on your work flow even after using the tools for a while you’ll still get a little smile...
View ArticleReusing Puppets Package providers
One of puppets more under-appreciated features is its ability to abstract and smooth the edges of certain operating system tasks and behaviours. Even something as trivial as installing a package can...
View ArticleFind Unpuppeted SSH Keys
It all started with one of those annoying little items on the todo list find all the unpuppeted ssh authorized_keys files on a machine and alert on them. On first impressions it was going to be quite...
View ArticlePuppet Cucumber Providers
At work we try, and sometimes even succeed, in using Test Driven Deployment so as one of my background projects I’ve been wrapping certaintools in to cucumber friendly forms. Over the last couple of...
View ArticleNagios Wrapped Puppet Runs
<tl;dr>Log nrpe-runner state changes when puppet runs to see what broke or was fixed.</tl;dr> While people most often use puppet to configure and repair their infrastructures sometimes they...
View ArticleListing Puppet Managed Files
Sometimes it’s the little niggles that annoy people the most. As my team progress in to puppet they have an annoying habit of asking very good questions; which can sometimes be a struggle to answer....
View ArticleSmarter Service Status in Puppet
While most people know you can use puppet to ensure a service is running the mechanism it uses to determine if a service is actually running is often unexplored. By default (at least up to Puppet 2.6)...
View ArticleSimple Puppet module grepper (prototype)
<tl;dr> Search for puppet resources values using puppet, not just plain text</tl;dr> One of the ideas that has been sitting on my todo list is having a command that lets me grep a puppet...
View ArticlePrettier Puppet with Pocco
Back in October Nan Liu announced “pocco - a puppet manifest documentation experiment" as a way of generating much nicer looking documentation for puppet classes (you can see an example and reducing...
View ArticlePuppet Camp - Ghent 2013
It’s been a while since I’ve attended a Puppet Camp but considering the quality of the last one (organised by Patrick Debois) and the fact it was being held in the lovely city of Ghent again I thought...
View ArticleDeprecation Warnings From Puppet Resources
Over time parts of your puppet manifests will become unneeded. You might move a cronjob or a users in to a package or no longer need a service to be enabled after a given release. I’ve recently had...
View ArticleFacter 1.7+ and External facts
While Puppet may get all the glory, Facter, the hard working information gathering library that can, seldom gets much exciting new functionality. However with the release of Facter 1.7 Puppetlabs have...
View ArticlePuppet Augeas Shells Provider
I’ve recently had the need to create a handful of small file based providers in puppet and while trundling uphill against the ParsedFile provider I decided to have a look at how custom providers are...
View ArticleStop People Calling Private Puppet Classes
When writing puppet modules sometimes you need to ensure that certain classes are only used within your module itself. For example a class that implements functionality based on the local operating...
View ArticleAsserting the Existence of External Facts
Facter 1.7 introduced support for external facts, and I gave some external fact examples, but it left a couple of small issues unresolved. One of the larger ones is the subject of syncing the external...
View ArticleValidating Config Files in Puppet and Ansible
While doing some experiments with Ansible I came across a little snippet of code that I really liked - - name: manage /etc/sudoers template: src=sudoers.j2 dest=/etc/sudoers validate='visudo -cf %s'...
View ArticleLiquid Templates in Puppet - Initial Release
Puppet has always supported templating via ERB and while it’s a powerful, flexible templating engine the ability to use any arbitrary ruby code inside a template that’s run on the puppet master...
View ArticlePro Puppet 2nd Edition - Initial Impressions
The kind people at Apress provided me with an alpha review copy of Pro Puppet and while it’s not the finished product you can already get a good feel for the books tone and coverage. I quite liked the...
View ArticlePuppet Book Summary - 2013
Even though I don’t spend as much time writing puppet code as I used to I try to stay relevant and as part of that I like to read all the Puppet books that come out. Below are the ones I’ve read this...
View ArticlePuppet Resource Ordering Options
Over the years Puppet has handled resources ordering without explicit dependencies in different ways, with the release of Puppet 3.3.0 they’ve exposed this ordering logic to the admin with three...
View ArticlePuppet External Resource - a Hidden gem
"a simple resource that blocks transactions until a check passes, theoretically indicating that a remote resource is in a desired state.“ – Puppet Remote Resource Documentation I stumbled over the...
View ArticlePackage Install Options in Puppet
One of the new features released in Puppet 3.4.0 is the ability to add options to rpm package installs. This is a feature that’s been discussed in a couple of tickets over the years and now we’ve got...
View ArticleStructured Facts with Facter 2
Structured facts in facter had become the Puppet communities version of ‘Duke Nukem Forever’, something that’s always been just around the next corner. Now that the facter 2.0.1 release candidate is...
View ArticlePuppet Certified Professional 2014 Exam
A little while ago in a twitter conversation, many hops away a few of us discussed the Puppet Certified Professional exam and topic coverage. Specifically how much of it was focused on Puppet...
View ArticlePuppet Lint Custom Checks
In the past if you wanted to run your own puppet-lint checks there was no official, really clean way to distribute them outside of the core code. Now, with the 1.0 release of puppet-lint you can write...
View ArticlePuppet 3.7 File Function Improvements
Puppet’s always had a couple of little inconsistencies when it comes to the file and template functions. The file function has always been able to search for multiple files and return the contents of...
View ArticleFacter: Ansible facts in Puppet
Have you ever needed to access Ansible facts from inside Puppet? well, if you ever need to, you can use the basic ansible_facts custom fact. # make sure you have ansible installed $ sudo puppet...
View ArticleSimple Puppet Module Testing with Dockunit
I’ve recently begun to look at replacing as much of my custom puppet tooling as possible with third-party, open source, code. As part of this I’m planning to update my old libvirt testing...
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