Best practices on puppet installation

[Ugo Bellavance]

Hi,

We have ~20 Red Hat servers and usually use EPEL as third-party repo.  I'm currently using the packages provided by this repo (2.6.17-2), but I was wondering what were the pros and cons of using puppetlabs' repo instead.  I can see that it provides puppet 3.x, facter 1.6.14 and hiera (which is unavailable in EPEL but I haven't started using it).  

I currently have a very basic setup but want to use puppet more in the future.  I also installed foreman on the same machine, which is not really usefull for me because the only thing that works on it is the display of my host and facts (I use kickstart scripts for provisionning).  I haven't been able to make the rest work (partly because I don't use modules yet).  I can see that puppetlabs' repo provides puppet-dashboard which may do the same thing and maybe more.

I can see that there are pros to use this repo but if I do, will I have to enable it on all my puppet agents or will my EPEL-provided agents be able to talk with the 3.0 puppet-server without restriction?

Thanks,

Ugo

[Peter Brown]

Hi Ugo,

You will get the current versions on the puppetlabs repo but you will also get versions that may disrupt your setup.

My advice would be to switch to 3.0 before you get to far in.

It adds a bunch of extra functionality and speedups and and switching your setup to 3.0 later will be a pain.

If you don't have a testing environment setup I would also recommend you set one up running 3.0 and test your modules with that before switching your production environment over.

Some reference material to help you switch

http://docs.puppetlabs.com/guides/upgrading.html

http://docs.puppetlabs.com/puppet/3/reference/release_notes.html#backwards-incompatible-changes-in-30

This section primarily but the whole page will help as well.

Good luck!

(I am in the process of switching my testing environment over to 3.0.1 so if you get suck I may be able to help)

Pete.

Thanks,

Ugo

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[Ugo Bellavance]

Thanks Pete,

Ugo

[Ugo Bellavance]

But will I need to put all my agents to 3.0 as well?  

Ugo

[Walter Heck]

On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 3:46 PM, Ugo Bellavance <ug...@lubik.ca> wrote:
> But will I need to put all my agents to 3.0 as well?

You'll be better off if you switch now, since the 2.x releases are in
bugfix-only state.

> On Thursday, November 22, 2012 6:16:26 PM UTC-5, Pete wrote:
>>> able to make the rest work (partly because I don't use modules yet). I can
>>> see that puppetlabs' repo provides puppet-dashboard which may do the same
>>> thing and maybe more.

puppet open source dashboard is not being actively developed, so you
are better off with the foreman or the enterprise version of puppet.

>>> I can see that there are pros to use this repo but if I do, will I have
>>> to enable it on all my puppet agents or will my EPEL-provided agents be able
>>> to talk with the 3.0 puppet-server without restriction?

You'll be better off getting the puppet agent from the PuppetLabs yum
repo's. They are kept up to date by people who know what they are
doing, so the chance of trouble is much smaller.

good luck,

--
Walter Heck

--
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[Dominik Żyła]

Hello,

2012/11/23 Walter Heck <walte...@gmail.com>

On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 3:46 PM, Ugo Bellavance <ug...@lubik.ca> wrote:
> But will I need to put all my agents to 3.0 as well?

You'll be better off if you switch now, since the 2.x releases are in
bugfix-only state.

 

You don't need to upgrade your agents. They would work fine with puppetmaster 3.0. But as Walter already mentioned, it would be definitively better also to switch them to 3.0 version. The more you don't have any fancy setup yet and it should be easy in comparison to benefits it can give you.

 

> On Thursday, November 22, 2012 6:16:26 PM UTC-5, Pete wrote:

>>> able to make the rest work (partly because I don't use modules yet).  I can
>>> see that puppetlabs' repo provides puppet-dashboard which may do the same
>>> thing and maybe more.

puppet open source dashboard is not being actively developed, so you
are better off with the foreman or the enterprise version of puppet.

>>> I can see that there are pros to use this repo but if I do, will I have
>>> to enable it on all my puppet agents or will my EPEL-provided agents be able
>>> to talk with the 3.0 puppet-server without restriction?

You'll be better off getting the puppet agent from the PuppetLabs yum
repo's. They are kept up to date by people who know what they are
doing, so the chance of trouble is much smaller.

100% agreement.

 

Best,

--
Dominik Żyła

[Ugo Bellavance]

On Friday, November 23, 2012 1:00:54 PM UTC-5, Walter Heck wrote:

On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 3:46 PM, Ugo Bellavance <ug...@lubik.ca> wrote:
> But will I need to put all my agents to 3.0 as well?
You'll be better off if you switch now, since the 2.x releases are in
bugfix-only state.

> On Thursday, November 22, 2012 6:16:26 PM UTC-5, Pete wrote:
>>> able to make the rest work (partly because I don't use modules yet).  I can
>>> see that puppetlabs' repo provides puppet-dashboard which may do the same
>>> thing and maybe more.
puppet open source dashboard is not being actively developed, so you
are better off with the foreman or the enterprise version of puppet.

Ok, but it looks like foreman is not fully puppet-3 compatible up to now.  I think I'll wait for that.

[Greg Sutcliffe]

On 25 November 2012 21:36, Ugo Bellavance <ug...@lubik.ca> wrote:
> Ok, but it looks like foreman is not fully puppet-3 compatible up to now. I
> think I'll wait for that.

We have all the required changes for puppet-3 compatibility in the
develop branches of foreman and foreman-proxy - hoping to get a
release candidate out soon, so stay tuned :)

Greg