This document summarizes lessons learned from installing a development stack using Puppet on Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows operating systems. It discusses using Puppet to automate the installation of tools like Atlassian, Sonar, Nexus, and MySQL. Puppet was chosen for its declarative syntax that does not require programming skills. Examples are provided for installing Nexus on Ubuntu, CentOS, and OSX. Adapting the Puppet code to different operating systems required handling package and service naming differences as well as command line differences. Significant challenges were encountered when trying to use Puppet on Windows due to the lack of standard commands and limited supported resources. Ruby was used to create new Puppet providers and resources to download

1. Using puppet on Linux,
Windows
and Mac OSX
Hein Couwet
2improveIT
hein@2improveit.eu
@heincouwet

2. Lessons learned from
installing a development
stack on the 3 major
operating systems :
Linux, Mac OSX and
Windows.

3. Context

4. installing a development
stack @iDalko
• automated
• asap : < 15 minutes

5. Installing an integrated
stack
• Atlassian tools (JIRA/Confluence/Fisheye/
Crucible/Bamboo/Stash)
• Other OpenSource Tools : Sonar / BIRT/
Nexus
• Database MySQL
• Frontend : Apache

6. Choice between
• Puppet
• Chef
• scripting : ant / bash / ...

7. Why Puppet
• Declarative syntax
• No ‘programming’ skills ...
• so the customer can understand without
learning a new language

8. Example : Nexus

9. Episode I : Ubuntu

10. Platform : Ubuntu
• Downloading using wget
• uncompress using tar -zxf
• starting up using linux services
• installing packages mysql and apache
• configuring vproxy in apache

11. Download
define download($url,$location,$filename) {
exec { "download-$filename":
cwd => "$location",
command => "/usr/bin/wget $url",
creates => "$location/$filename",
logoutput => "on_failure",
timeout => 0,
require => File["$location"],
}
}

12. Uncompress
define untargz($location,$filename,$creates) {
exec { "untargz":
cwd => "$location",
command => "/bin/tar -zxvf $filename",
creates => "$creates",
logoutput => "on_failure",
timeout => 0,
}
}

13. Starting up linux
services
file { "/etc/init.d/nexus":
ensure => link,
target => "${nexus_install}/bin/nexus",
}
service { "nexus":
ensure => running,
require => File["/etc/init.d/nexus"],
}

14. Installing packages
Apache
package { "apache2-mpm-prefork":
ensure =>installed
}
service { "apache2":
enable => true,
ensure => running,
require => Package["apache2-mpm-prefork"],
}

15. Lessons learned ...
• instead of using
a { “xxx”:
...
}
b { “yyy” :
....
require => A[“xxx”]
}

16. Lessons learned ...
• start using
a { “xxx”:
...
}
->
b { “yyy” :
....
}

17. Episode II : CentOS

18. Challenge 1
• Another customer has a CentOS server
instead of Ubuntu ...
• can we also use puppet ?

19. Problem 1
• other naming of apache packages
• apache2 <-> httpd

20. Solution
case
$operatingsystem
{
"CentOS":
{
$packages
=
[
"httpd"
]
package
{
$packages:
ensure
=>
installed,
}
service
{
"httpd":
ensure
=>
running,
require
=>
Package["httpd"],
}
}
"Debian":
{
$packages
=
[
"apache2-­‐mpm-­‐prefork"
]
package
{
$packages:
ensure
=>
installed,
}
service
{
"apache2":
ensure
=>
running,
require
=>
Package["apache2-­‐mpm-­‐prefork"]
}
}

21. Opportunity 1
• start using hiera

22. Episode III : OSX

23. Why ?
• Just for local testing on my development
machine
• ➟ limited scope, no longer apache,
service ...

24. small adaptations ...
• instead of
exec { ...:
command => "/usr/bin/wget $url",
}
• now use
exec { ... :
command => "wget $url",
path => “$::path”,
}

25. Episode IV : Windows

26. Windows
• Back to basics
• no longer ‘standard’ commands
• no longer unix paths
• limited set of puppet resources available

27. Window Paths
Windows file paths must be written in different ways at different times, due to various tools’ conflicting rules for backslash use.
1 Windows file system APIs accept both the backslash () and forwardslash (/) to separate directory and file components in a path.
2 Some Windows programs only accept backslashes in file paths.
3 *nix shells and many programming languages — including the Puppet language — use the backslash as an escape character.
As a result, any system that interacts with *nix and Windows systems as equal peers will unavoidably have complicated behavior around backslashes.
The following guidelines will help you use backslashes safely in Windows file paths with Puppet.
Forward Slashes vs. Backslashes
In many cases, you can use forward slashes instead of backslashes when specifying file paths.
Forward slashes MUST be used in:
1 Template paths passed to the template function. For example:
file
{'C:/warning.txt':
2
ensure
=>
present,
3
content
=>
template('my_module/warning.erb'),
4
}
6 Puppet URLs in a file resource’s source attribute.

28. Window Paths
Forward slashes SHOULD be used in:
1 The title or path attribute of a file resource
2 The source attribute of a package resource
3 Local paths in a file resource’s source attribute
4 The command of an exec resource, unless the executable requires backslashes, e.g. cmd.exe
Forward slashes MUST NOT be used in:
1 The command of a scheduled_task resource.
2 The install_options of a package resource.
The Rule
If Puppet itself is interpreting the file path, forward slashes are okay. If the file path is being passed directly to a Windows program, forward slashes may not be okay.
Using Backslashes in Double-Quoted Strings
Puppet supports two kinds of string quoting. Strings surrounded by double quotes (") allow variable interpretation and many escape sequences (including the common
n for a newline), so care must be taken to prevent backslashes from being mistaken for escape sequences.
When using backslashes in a double-quoted string, you must always use two backslashes for each literal backslash. There are no exceptions and no special cases.
Using Backslashes in Single-Quoted Strings
Strings surrounded by single quotes (') do not allow variable interpretation, and the only escape sequences permitted are ' (a literal single quote) and (a literal
backslash).
Lone backslashes can usually be used in single-quoted strings. However:
1 When a backslash occurs at the very end of a single-quoted string, a double backslash must be used instead of a single backslash. For example: path
=>
'C:
Program
Files(x86)'

29. Window Paths
The Rule
If Puppet itself is interpreting the file path, forward slashes are okay. If the file path is being passed directly to a Windows program, forward
slashes may not be okay.
Using Backslashes in Double-Quoted Strings
Puppet supports two kinds of string quoting. Strings surrounded by double quotes (") allow variable interpretation and many escape
sequences (including the common n for a newline), so care must be taken to prevent backslashes from being mistaken for escape
sequences.
When using backslashes in a double-quoted string, you must always use two backslashes for each literal backslash. There are no
exceptions and no special cases.
Using Backslashes in Single-Quoted Strings
Strings surrounded by single quotes (') do not allow variable interpretation, and the only escape sequences permitted are ' (a literal
single quote) and (a literal backslash).
Lone backslashes can usually be used in single-quoted strings. However:
1 When a backslash occurs at the very end of a single-quoted string, a double backslash must be used instead of a single backslash.
For example: path
=>
'C:Program
Files(x86)'
2 When a literal double backslash is intended, a quadruple backslash must be used.The Rule
In single-quoted strings:
1 A double backslash always means a literal backslash.
2 A single backslash usually means a literal backslash, unless it is followed by a single quote or another backslash.

30. Conclusion: Paths on
Windows
• I don’t even want to show you my first
attempt
• Too complicated !!!!

31. Basic tools doesn’t
exist
• tar
• unzip
• wget

32. Ruby to the rescue
• Puppet providers /resources
• creating new ones
• replacing wget
• replacing tar / unzip
• programming in Ruby, but still
understandable for the customer

33. puppet/type/install.rb
Puppet::Type.newtype(:install) do
ensurable
newparam (:path) do
desc "The file name where to install"
end
newparam(:uri) do
! desc "The uri from where to get the file"
isnamevar
validate do |value|
if value =~ /^http:/
resource[:provider] = :http
end
end
end
newparam(:download) do
! desc "The intermediary file as download"
end
newparam(:unzip) do
desc "Need to unzip"
end
end

34. puppet/provider/install/
http.rb
require 'fileutils'
require 'net/http'
require 'uri'
require 'zip/zip'
Puppet::Type.type(:install).provide(:http) do
def create
path = resource[:path]
if resource[:download]
temp_path = resource[:download]
else
temp_path = "#{path}.download"
end
uri = URI(resource[:uri])
download( uri, temp_path)
if resource[:unzip]
unzip_file(temp_path,path)
else
FileUtils.mv temp_path path
end
! FileUtils.touch "#{temp_path}.done"
end
def exists?
path = resource[:path]
if resource[:download]
temp_path = resource[:download]
else
temp_path = "#{path}.download"
end
! check_path = "#{temp_path}.done"
! File.exist? check_path
end
def unzip_file (file, destination)
end
def download (uri , path)end
end

35. Pitfalls
• Use the correct gem
• not zip
• buggy ... :-(
• but rubyzip

36. Pitfalls
• Augeas
• not supporting xml with mixed quotes
• not yet supported on puppet - windows

37. Ruby to the rescue
• adding providers for
• text replacement
• xml-path replacement

38. My Conclusion
• Never use exec
• Core Puppet needs some basic functionality
support for ALL platforms such as
• downloading files from the web : wget
• zip / tar
• search/replace in file/xml ...

39. My Puppet
Opportunities for 2013
• hiera
• Testing my puppet scripts

40. Questions ?