Last week, I discussed how to upgrade your Linux and Windows Puppet Enterprise agents with puppet_agent. Today, we will look at two different ways to upgrade your Puppet OpenSource agents, first with puppet_agent and then with jlambert121/puppet. There are many other modules that you can use to manage puppet, some of which offer similar functionality that you may be able to apply some of these lessons to.

Why are we looking at two different modules today? I use jlambert121’s module to manage my puppetserver already. Unfortunately, it is puppet 4 only and I still had some puppet 3 agents hanging around according to puppetboard. I also have some other modules that are puppet 4 only, like the latest version of puppetlabs/ntp. I could use jlambert121/puppet to upgrade my agents that are already on puppet 4, but need something to help get my puppet 3 agents over the hump – that’s where puppet_agent comes in. We will start with that.

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I manage about 15 VMs in my home lab with OpenSource Puppet. Unlike Puppet Enterprise, there’s no Console to help you determine when agents stop checking in or encountering any problems applying their catalog. With only 15 agents it’s not a huge problem, but it always rears its head at the worst time. I decided to deploy Puppetboard at home to get a similar view to PE’s Console. As is always the way, we’re going to deploy that using a puppet module, Vox Pupuli’s puppet/puppetboard. Now, I’ve got Puppetboard running, but it’s served via HTTP and communicates with puppetdb via HTTP, so there’s room to improve. I’m not sure I’ll get to that, since this is on a private network, but something to keep in mind if you’re implementing this in a more sensitive deployment.

Special thanks to Tim Meusel for his assistance with some of the settings!

The first step is to add the module and its dependencies to the Puppetfile and .fixtures.yml. You may have a few of these modules already, but I’ve bumped them to the latest version.

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We’ve all found ourselves anxiously awaiting a new module release of our favorite puppet module on the forge. It might be coming down the pipe today, next month, or who knows when, but you’re going to need it as soon as it’s released. The forge fairly recently announced an RSS feed per module. You can see this in your RSS reader, if you use one, or get email notifications with a number of services, a few of which are mentioned in that blog. I have wanted to play with If This, Then That for a while, so I decided to see if I could figure out how to get emails through it.

You’ll need an IFTTT account, at least one puppet module you want to receive alerts on, and of course an email address to receive the alert. Once you sign up for IFTTT, go to My Applets and choose New Applet. On the next page, it’s not obvious but click the +this text and it brings you to a selection page. Click on Feed, then New Feed Item. Now switch over to your target module on the forge and find the rss link. The pattern’s pretty easy, just add /rss to the module’s link.

Now click on +that and select Email, then Send me an email. If you want, adjust the contents of the email – I found the default field setup okay – and then hit Create Action. Click on the slider to the right of Receive notifications when this Applet runs and hit Finish

If you want to change anything, click the gear icon, adjust what you need and hit Save. Repeat for all the modules you want to receive notifications upon update. Here’s what an email will look like:

You can also view, update, and add additional applets using the IFTTT app for your phone or tablet. This might not be very pretty or exciting, but since I just want to get alerts without firing up an RSS reader, it’s good enough for me. Now to start updating my Puppetfile. Enjoy!