Steps to build a Puppet 4 install in my home directory for building modules

[James Perry]

Years ago there were a lot of docs about how to setup Puppet to allow someone to build modules outside having to have a master/client setup using puppet apply. 

I am trying to figure out the very cryptic world of spec/rspec, as it seems to not be documented very well anywhere for anyone other than someone that already knows it, In doing so I don't want to be able to develop in my home directory in a server versus having to develop modules and test with rspec against a full puppet server configuration. 

So far I have found little bits and pieces around, but nothing definitive or documented well for building something of this nature. The best I found so far were pre-built Ubuntu Docker containers or Vagrant builds. I don't have access to either presently or the time to build out a server to handle hosting either. 

Does anyone have a guide to setting up a stand-alone puppet client for development.  There used to be a rspec-puppet.com/setup page and that is what is linked from inside the documentation, but the page is gone. 

What I have so far is: 

1. .Install puppet-agent to the host as root. 

2. Setup paths to use the Ruby configuration from the puppet-agent so that the any gem add-ons are compatible with the version of the puppet-agent RPM. 

3. Install puppetlabs-stdlib, rspec-puppet and any dependencies they require. 

When I have done a puppet module generate <name> and a rspec-puppet-init, I create a basic test to ensure the module compiles, as noted on the rspec-puppet Github page https://github.com/rodjek/rspec-puppet, That fails saying it can find compile. 

describe 'mymodule' do 

   it { is_expected.to compile } 

end 

Any other tests that "should" work don't. either. 

So in modules/test/manifests/init.pp I have:

class test {

   package { 'somepackage': 

        ensure => present,

  }

}

And my modules/test/spec/class/init_spec.rb has 

require 'spec_helper' 

describe 'test' do

    it { is_expected.to contain('somepackage').with_ensure('present')

end

So since this seems to be non-functional in my puppet development environment, which is a copy of my prod, I want to set it up fresh. When I tried in my home directory all i got were errors. 

[Rob Nelson]

James,

As you have discovered, the setup you want is not quite documented the way or in the locations you would expect, but it is documented in many places, such as https://puppet.com/blog/unit-testing-rspec-puppet-for-beginners and https://puppet.com/blog/use-onceover-start-testing-rspec-puppet.

IMO, what you really want to do is integrate tests with your version-controlled code, in-place, rather than replicating it somewhere else. You can do this by using ruby's bundler and a Gemfile to get started, then add a spec/spec_helper.rb and spec/classes/*_spec.rb files for unit tests and so on and so forth. But, you don't actually need puppet installed, as that can come from a gem in the bundler setup. There's a lot to do and many ways to do it, so there's no single solution to choose.

I've written a lot about my explorations with rspec on my blog (https://rnelson0.com/?s=rspec) but here's how I would start. Use puppet-module-skeleton (https://github.com/garethr/puppet-module-skeleton) which creates a new module with rspec tests. It is designed for a module rather than a controlrepo, so will take a little re-working to align it properly for that (https://rnelson0.com/2015/11/24/modern-rspec-puppet-practices/ and optionally https://rnelson0.com/2016/11/06/puppet-tech-debt-moving-rspec-tests/), but is pretty good for both. Once you get it all working, you commit the changes to your module/controlrepo and then it's bundled with your puppet code, and thus always available for testing. It does mean the tests are deployed on your master, but aside from a little extra disk space, it will have no impact on agents connecting and should not be a concern. It's also portable for when you get a vagrant or docker setup going.

With the bundler/rspec framework in place, your workflow becomes:

* Clone your controlrepo

* Checkout a feature branch for changes

* Run `bundle install` with appropriate args (I use `bundle install --path vendor --without system_tests development` most of the time)

* Run `bundle exec rake test` to run all the tests (the target `spec`, or the pair `spec_prep` and `spec_clean` will JUST run your unit tests), everything should pass

* Make all the edits you need

* Run `bundle exec rake test` and ensure the tests continue to pass. If not, repeat the previous step until tests do pass.

* Commit your code, push to upstream

There are plenty of examples of control repos out there but not all have a working test setup included. Check out these two that show the example:

* https://github.com/example42/psick

* https://github.com/puppetinabox/controlrepo

I hope this helps!

Rob Nelson
rnel...@gmail.com

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[David Schmitt]

On 19 July 2017 at 00:51, James Perry <jjpe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Years ago there were a lot of docs about how to setup Puppet to allow someone to build modules outside having to have a master/client setup using puppet apply. 

I am trying to figure out the very cryptic world of spec/rspec, as it seems to not be documented very well anywhere for anyone other than someone that already knows it, In doing so I don't want to be able to develop in my home directory in a server versus having to develop modules and test with rspec against a full puppet server configuration. 

The whole point of rspec is to not require a puppetserver for testing. You can read more on the newly updated rspec-puppet tutorial at http://rspec-puppet.com/tutorial/ .

If you need a development environment, we released a development kit preview last week (https://groups.google.com/d/msg/puppet-users/_G6issIdmVY/5oUfKhwkAQAJ ) that you might want to check out to get all the tools with a single installer.

Would love to hear how you got along with either!

Cheers, David

So far I have found little bits and pieces around, but nothing definitive or documented well for building something of this nature. The best I found so far were pre-built Ubuntu Docker containers or Vagrant builds. I don't have access to either presently or the time to build out a server to handle hosting either. 

Does anyone have a guide to setting up a stand-alone puppet client for development.  There used to be a rspec-puppet.com/setup page and that is what is linked from inside the documentation, but the page is gone. 

What I have so far is: 

1. .Install puppet-agent to the host as root. 

2. Setup paths to use the Ruby configuration from the puppet-agent so that the any gem add-ons are compatible with the version of the puppet-agent RPM. 

3. Install puppetlabs-stdlib, rspec-puppet and any dependencies they require. 

When I have done a puppet module generate <name> and a rspec-puppet-init, I create a basic test to ensure the module compiles, as noted on the rspec-puppet Github page https://github.com/rodjek/rspec-puppet, That fails saying it can find compile. 

describe 'mymodule' do 

   it { is_expected.to compile } 

end 

Any other tests that "should" work don't. either. 

So in modules/test/manifests/init.pp I have:

class test {

   package { 'somepackage': 

        ensure => present,

  }

}

And my modules/test/spec/class/init_spec.rb has 

require 'spec_helper' 

describe 'test' do

    it { is_expected.to contain('somepackage').with_ensure('present')

end

So since this seems to be non-functional in my puppet development environment, which is a copy of my prod, I want to set it up fresh. When I tried in my home directory all i got were errors. 

[James Perry]

Thanks. 

I had looked at these but was missing something along the way.  I now have what appears to be a working setup and a rake rspec is now properly mocking and testing the modules. 

Now I just have to figure out why it isn't picking up the custom fact. That will require more RTFM and Google.  

[Rob Nelson]

If you're talking about testing it, it gets its own test like https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-java/blob/master/spec/unit/facter/java_version_spec.rb. If you're talking about using the custom fact in an otherwise unrelated unit test. it depends on who sets the fact, and where; you may need to mock it up or just set it in a `let :facts` block for simplicity.

Rob Nelson
rnel...@gmail.com

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[James Perry]

Thanks. I think I will set the use a `let :facts` block for this testing. I want to have it test against specific mocked facts. 

On Monday, July 24, 2017 at 3:04:14 PM UTC-4, Rob Nelson wrote:

If you're talking about testing it, it gets its own test like https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-java/blob/master/spec/unit/facter/java_version_spec.rb. If you're talking about using the custom fact in an otherwise unrelated unit test. it depends on who sets the fact, and where; you may need to mock it up or just set it in a `let :facts` block for simplicity.

Rob Nelson
rnel...@gmail.com

On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 2:42 PM, James Perry <jjpe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks. 

I had looked at these but was missing something along the way.  I now have what appears to be a working setup and a rake rspec is now properly mocking and testing the modules. 

Now I just have to figure out why it isn't picking up the custom fact. That will require more RTFM and Google.  

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