puppet_agent

puppet_agent - Table of Contents

Overview

A module for upgrading Puppet agents. Supports upgrading from Puppet 4 puppet-agent packages to later versions including Puppet 4, Puppet 5, and Puppet 6.

Previous releases of this module, now unsupported, upgraded agents from later versions of Puppet 3 to Puppet 4.

Module Description

The puppet_agent module installs the appropriate official Puppet package repository (on systems that support repositories); migrates configuration required by Puppet to new locations used by puppet-agent; and installs the puppet-agent package, removing the previous Puppet installation.

If a package_version parameter is provided, it will ensure that puppet-agent version is installed. The package_version parameter is required to perform upgrades starting from a puppet-agent package, also this parameter can be set to "auto", ensuring that agent version matches the version on the master without having to manually update package_version after upgrading the master(s).

Setup

What puppet_agent affects

Puppet, Facter, Hiera, and MCollective (MCollective is no longer included in Puppet 6 installs).
Puppet's SSL directory and puppet.conf.
Removes deprecated settings from puppet.conf.

Setup requirements

Your agents must be running a minimum version of Puppet 4. They should already be pointed at a master running Puppet Server 2.1 or greater, and thus successfully applying catalogs compiled with the Puppet 4 or newer language.

Beginning with puppet_agent

Install the puppet_agent module with puppet module install puppetlabs-puppet_agent.

Usage

Add the class to agents you want to upgrade, specifying the desired puppet-agent version:

class {'::puppet_agent':
  package_version => '1.4.0',
}

This will ensure the version 1.4.0 of the puppet-agent package is installed. For version 1.4.0 and later, it will also remove the deprecated pluginsync setting from puppet.conf, unless explicitly managed elsewhere.

Using alternate sources

In cases where you wish to download agents from sources other than the defaults you can use source parameters to change the location to grab packages from.

Public downloads mirrors

If you wish to mirror the Puppet public downloads sites (yum.puppet.com, apt.puppet.com, downloads.puppet.com) you can provide the following parameters to change the location of downloads:

yum_source
apt_source
mac_source
windows_source
solaris_source
aix_source

For AIX and Solaris packages: because AIX and Solaris are PE only you must use puppetlabs-pe_repo to create repos for these platforms on the PE master, then mirror the PE master package serve.

When working with a PE installation: if you set use_alternate_sources to true you can force agent downloads to come from downloads sites (or a mirror if you set the source parameters) rather than the PE master. WARNING This parameter will override the default settings in PE installations to download packages from the PE master. If you wish to continue to download from the PE master do not set this parameter.

Absolute paths to packages

If your packages are already available on the target system (for example if you are using a network share) you can provide absolute_source the path to the packages to use during installation.

WARNING You must provide the full path, including the package name, for this parameter to work. This also means you cannot provide the same absolute_source for two different types of packages.

Alternate PE master location

If you are using puppetlabs-pe_repo to serve packages, but want to provide a location other than the current master to serve packages: use alternate_pe_source to specify a seperate location where packages are located in the same structure that would be on a PE master.

Reference

Public classes

puppet_agent

Private classes

puppet_agent::install: Installs packages.
puppet_agent::osfamily::*: Platform-specific preparation performed before upgrades.
puppet_agent::prepare: Prepares the agent for upgrade.
puppet_agent::prepare::package: Stages packages locally for install, on platforms that can't install from remote packages.
puppet_agent::prepare::*: Prepare various file configurations.
puppet_agent::service: Ensures the services are running.
puppet_agent::windows::install: Handles Windows package installation.

Parameters

Class: puppet_agent

`arch`

The architecture version you wish to install. Defaults to $::facts['architecture'].

  arch => 'x86_64'

`collection`

The Puppet Collection to track, should be one of puppet5 or puppet6. Puppet collections contain the latest agents included in the collection's series, so puppet5 will pull in the most recent Puppet 5 release (for example: 5.5.10) as also will puppet6 for Puppet 6 (for example: 6.3.0). This parameter is required for installations not connected to Puppet Enterprise

  collection => 'puppet6'

`is_pe`

Install from Puppet Enterprise (PE) repos. Enabled if communicating with a PE master.

  is_pe => true

`manage_repo`

Boolean to determine whether to configure zypper/yum/apt/solaris repositories. Defaults to true. If set to false, it is assumed an internally hosted repository will be used for the installation, and the native package providers will be used to query pre-configured repos on the host being upgraded.

  manage_repo => true

`package_version`

The package version to upgrade to. This must be explicitly specified.

  package_version => '5.5.10'

  package_version => 'auto'

`service_names`

An array of services to start, normally puppet. If the array is empty, no services are started.

  service_names => ['puppet']

`source`

INCLUDED FOR COMPATIBILITY WITH MODULE VERSIONS 1.0/2.0. PREFER USE OF "absolute_source", "(yum/apt/mac etc.)_source", "alternate_pe_source" OVER USE OF "source".

The location to find packages. Replaces base URL for unix/MacOS agents, used as fully qualified path in windows.

Unix/MacOS

  source => 'https://alternate-pe-master.com:8140'

Windows

  source => 'C:/packages/puppet-agent-6.0.0-x64.msi'

`absolute_source`

Absolute ("fully qualified") source path from which you wish to download the latest version of Puppet. No path structure or package name is assumed: the fully qualified path to the package itself must be provided.

  absolute_source => 'C:/packages/puppet-agent-6.0.0-x64.msi'

`yum_source`

Base URL of a location or mirrors of yum.puppet.com downloads sites. Directories under the URL should match the structure of yum.puppet.com

  yum_source => 'https://my-puppet-yum-mirror.com'

`apt_source`

Base URL of a location or mirrors of apt.puppet.com downloads sites. Directories under the URL should match the structure of apt.puppet.com

  apt_source => 'https://my-puppet-apt-mirror.com'

`mac_source`

Base URL of a location or mirrors of downloads.puppet.com downloads site that serves MacOS packages. Directories under the URL should match the structure of the downloads.puppet.com site

  mac_source => 'https://my-puppet-downloads-mirror.com'

`windows_source`

URL of a location or mirrors of downloads.puppet.com downloads site that serves packages. Directories under the URL should match the structure of downloads.puppet.com site

  windows_source => 'https://my-puppet-downloads-mirror.com'

`solaris_source`

Base URL of the location of a mirror for Solaris packages. Currently, solaris packages can only be made available by using puppetlabs-pe_repo. This means the mirror must be of a PE master package serve.

  solaris_source => 'https://my-pe_master-mirror.com'

`aix_source`

Base URL of the location of a mirror for AIX packages. Currently, AIX packages can only be made available by using puppetlabs-pe_repo. This means the mirror must be of a PE master package serve.

  aix_source => 'https://my-pe_master-mirror.com'

`use_alternate_sources`

ONLY APPLICABLE WHEN WORKING WITH PE INSTALLTIONS

When set to true will force downloads to come from the values of $apt_source, $deb_source $mac_source etc. rather than from the default PE master package serve. Note that this will also force downloads to ignore alternate_pe_source.

  use_alternate_sources => true

`alternate_pe_source`

Base URL of a location where packages are located in the same structure that's served by a PE master (the directory structure in PE for serving packages is created by the puppetlabs-pe_repo module). The general structure served by PE is: /packages/${pe_server_version}/${platform_tag}/${package_name}

  alternate_pe_source => 'https://my-alternate-pe-master.com:8140'

`install_dir`

The directory the puppet agent should be installed to. This is only applicable for Windows operating systems and when upgrading the agent to a new version; it will not cause re-installation of the same version to a new location. This must use backslashes for the path separator, and be an absolute path, for example:

  install_dir => 'D:\Program Files\Puppet Labs'

`install_options`

An array of additional options to pass when installing puppet-agent. Each option in the array can be either a string or a hash. Each option is automatically quoted when passed to the install command.

With Windows packages, note that file paths in install_options must use backslashes. (Since install options are passed directly to the installation command, forward slashes aren't automatically converted like they are in file resources.) Backslashes in double-quoted strings must be escaped, while backslashes in single-quoted strings can be escaped. The default value for Windows packages is REINSTALLMODE="maus".

  install_options => ['PUPPET_AGENT_ACCOUNT_DOMAIN=ExampleCorp','PUPPET_AGENT_ACCOUNT_USER=bob','PUPPET_AGENT_ACCOUNT_PASSWORD=password']

`msi_move_locked_files`

This is only applicable for Windows operating systems. There may be instances where file locks cause unncessary service restarts. By setting to true, the module will move files prior to installation that are known to cause file locks. By default this is set to false.

  msi_move_locked_files => true

`wait_for_pxp_agent_exit`

This is only applicable for Windows operating systems and pertains to /files/install_puppet.ps1 script. This parameterizes the module to define the wait time for the PXP agent to end successfully. The default value is 2 minutes and the timeout value must be defined in milliseconds. Example below, 8 minutes is equal to 480000.

  wait_for_pxp_agent_exit => 480000

Tasks

`puppet_agent::version`

Checks for the version of puppet-agent package installed.

Return value

The puppet_agent::version task returns a Result on success specifying the version of the agent installed and how it was detected.

{
  "version": <version>,
  "source": <source>
}

`puppet_agent::install`

Installs the puppet-agent package.

Note: The puppet_agent::install_shell task requires the facts::bash implementation from the facts module. Both the puppet_agent and facts modules are packaged with Bolt. For use outside of Bolt make sure the facts module is installed to the same modules directory as puppet_agent.

Return value

The task returns the output of the installation script.

Limitations

Mac OS X/macOS open source packages are not supported in puppet_agent module releases prior to v2.1.0.

Known issues

There are a few known issues on Windows platforms:

To upgrade the agent by executing puppet agent -t interactively in a console, you must leave the console open and wait for the upgrade to finish before attempting to use the puppet command again. During upgrades the upgrade scripts use a 'pid file' located at Drive:\ProgramData\PuppetLabs\puppet\cache\state\puppet_agent_upgrade.pid to indicate there is an upgrade in progress. The 'pid file' also contains the process ID of the upgrade, if you wish to track the process itself.
MSI installation failures do not produce any error. If the install fails, puppet_agent continues to be applied to the agent. If this happens, you'll need to examine the MSI log file to determine the failure's cause. You can find the location of the log file in the debug output from either a puppet apply or an agent run; the log file name follows the pattern puppet-<timestamp>-installer.log.

Specifically in the 1.2.0 Release:

For Windows, you must trigger an agent run after upgrading so that Puppet can create the necessary directory structures.

Development

Puppet, Inc. modules on the Puppet Forge are open projects, and community contributions are essential for keeping them great. We can’t access the huge number of platforms and myriad hardware, software, and deployment configurations that Puppet is intended to serve. We want to keep it as easy as possible to contribute changes so that our modules work in your environment. There are a few guidelines that we need contributors to follow so that we can have a chance of keeping on top of things. For more information, see our module contribution guide.