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Introduction📌
Puppet is a well-known term in the software industry these days. This is because of the ease that puppet provides in the development field.
In this blog, our primary focus will be on learning the concept of puppet-man pages. We will first learn about puppet. When we are well acquainted with the concept of puppet, we will then move to the concept of puppet man pages. Let us now dive deep into the concept of puppet man pages.😎
Puppet✍
Puppet is a popular tool in DevOps.Puppet is a system management tool. The task of puppet is to deploy and manage the servers. Microsoft Windows and Ubuntu, which we commonly use, are controlled by puppet. Puppet is based on the client-server model. The system working as the server is called the puppet master. The system that works as a client is known as the slave. One advantage of puppet is that you can run the exact configuration instructions on the same system.
Now that we are familiar with puppet, let us proceed with learning puppet man pages.🎯
Primary Subcommands⭕
The puppet tool set contains numerous subcommands. We will discuss these subcommands in the puppet man pages in detail. Let us first list out these subcommands.
⭕Puppet agent
⭕Puppet apply
⭕Puppet lookup
⭕Puppet module
⭕Puppet resource
Let us discuss these puppet man pages and their components in detail.
Puppet Man Pages: Puppet Agent📌
Definition🎯
Applies the client configuration information from a remote server to the local host. It can also be used for testing. The client configuration will not just be retrieved. It will first be verified. The client should have the authorization certificate. Once the certificate is authentic and verified, then the configuration is applied.
There are certain flags that are for interactive use. These are ‘fingerprint,’ ‘test,’ and skip_tags.’
📌Fingerprint
Fingerprint is a single-time use flag. The information of the signed certificate that is in use at that time, is shown in the console.
📌Test
The test command runs only once and exits. It basically contains the information on the exit codes.
📌Skip_tags
It has comma-separated values. If we want to apply the resources that are not tagged with those tags, we have to set this skip_tags.
Configurations📌
Settings
Description
–certname
It sets the id of the client.This is used for debugging purpose.
–debug
It enables debugging.
–digest
It changes the algorithm of the fingerprint.
–enable
It helps the puppet system to manage the local system.
–version
It is used to print the version of the puppet.
–sourceaddress
It is used to set the IP address.
–disable
It prevents the puppet system to work on local system till lock file is present.
Puppet Man Pages: Puppet Apply📌
Definition🎯
Puppet apply is basically used to apply individual manifests. We can also implement a puppet site without a server with puppet apply. For this, we need to combine puppet apply with an automated system to push the manifests. It is nothing but an application used to manage the node configurations.
One important point to be noted here is that any setting can be used as a valid argument for puppet apply till it is valid in the configuration file.
Configurations📌
A list of the valid options in the puppet apply is given below for reference.
Settings
Description
–logdest
It has information about where the log messages are to be sent.
–execute
This is used to execute a puppet code.
–debug
It is used to enable debugging.
–detailed-exitcodes
It has information about exit codes.
–help
It is used to print the help message.
–loadclasses
It is used to load classes.
Puppet Man Pages: Puppet Module📌
Definition🎯
As the name suggests, the basic task of puppet module is to find the modules. It searches for the modules in the puppet forge. Puppet forges basically a collection of modules by puppet. Not only in searches for the modules but also manages the modules. It is also used to create empty modules.
Configurations📌
The list of configuration options are mentioned below.
Option
Description
–debug
It has information about debugging.
–environment production
Puppet runs in a specific environment. This option has information on environment production.
–verbose
It represents whether to log verbosely.
–modulepath
We cannot set a global value for modulepath. It is the path to search for modules.
Actions📍
Let us look at the actions that can be defined in the puppet module.
📌Install
As the name suggests, the install action is used to install a module from the puppet forge. The module that is installed is always stored in a particular directory. This action basically returns the information about the path for the installed module.
📌Changes
The task of this action is to display the files that have any changes from the time when it was installed. This action returns an array that contains the modified files.
📌Uninstall
This is simply used to uninstall a particular module. It returns the information about the uninstalled modules in the form of a hash of objects.
📌List
By using this action we can see a list of all the installed modules. This also contains information about the version and module dependencies.
Puppet Man Pages: Puppet Resource📌
Definition🎯
This is used to convert the system's current state to the desired puppet code. You can also modify the current state. It lists all the information about that type of resource.
Configurations📌
The configuration options for puppet resourcesenvironmental are listed below in a tabular form.
Options
Description
–help
It is used to output the help message.
–debug
It is used to enable debugging.
–param
It is used to add more parameters.
–types
It contains all the types.
–edit
It can open the file in the editor.
Puppet Man Pages: Puppet Lookup📌
Definition📌
The task of the puppet lookup is to search for a particular Hiera data and return the desired value. It helps you to test and easily find your data. It has replaced the ‘hiera’ command. Hiera is used to find relevant resources. The user can request multiple lookup keys, but it only returns the first appropriate value, not all.
Configurations📌
Options
Description
–explain
It has information about the mechanism of the lookup.
–help
It is used to output the help message.
–environment
This contains information on the environment of the Hiera data.
–facts
It specifies whether the file has .json or .yaml key
–node
It has information about the node that contains the required data.
–default
The search for data is not always successful. This is used to describe the value that is to be returned if the desired value is not found.
–type
Contains the type of the value.
–compile
It does a full compilation before lookup.
Secondary Subcommands🎯
After learning about the primary subcommands, let us now proceed to learn about the secondary subcommands in brief.
The secondary subcommands are not used as much as the primary subcommands are used. The secondary subcommands are as follows.
📌Puppet config
It is used to modify the settings from Puppet’s ‘puppet.conf’ configuration file.
📌Puppet doc
It is used to generate a document describing all the installed puppet types.
📌Puppet device
It is used to request certificates, retrievetalogs, and store reports.
📌Puppet help
It is used for assistance to the puppet subcommands.
📌Puppet node
It is used to interact with the nodes.
📌Puppet script
It is used to run a puppet code without compilation.
📌Puppet plugin
It is used to access the plugins in puppet master.
📌Puppet ssl
It is used to manage the authenticity of SSL certificates and SSL keys.
Niche Subcommands🎯
Niche subcommands are not much used by people these days. They are designed for some fixed workflows. The niche subcommands are as follows.
📌Puppet facts
It is used to manage the facts in puppet. It can also read the facts from the local system.
📌Puppet catalog
It is used to manage the catalogs in puppet.
📌Puppet report
It is used to manage the reports. It submits, creates and displays the report.
📌Puppet filebucket
It is used to manage files. It basically sends files to a local or central filebucket.
We hope you have understood the concept of puppet man pages.🎯
Frequently Asked Questions
What language is Puppet built on?
Puppet is built using Ruby domain-specific language.
Is puppet an open-source tool?
Puppet is an open-source tool. Puppet is also available in the enterprise version.
What is a puppet module?
Like any other module, a puppet module contains files, data, and manifests.
What is the use of puppet forge?
The puppet forge contains over 6000 modules in a library that can be used.
Which is better, Ansible or Puppet?
In terms of architecture and ease of setup, ansible is better than puppet because it does not use any agent in its setup.
Conclusion
In this blog, we discussed the puppet man pages. We first started by discussing puppet. We then learned about primary subcommands and explored the puppet man pages, descriptions, and configurations.
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