Puppet Configuration on Azure VM (Part-I)

In this blog, I will deploy the Puppet on Azure virtual machine. First thing you have to do is take a look on my this blog to know, how to create a virtual on Azure using command line. And then If Puppet is new for you, read my this blog first.

Create a virtual machine for Puppet master using following command:

az vm create --resource-group halcyoona-group --name master --image UbuntuLTS --generate-ssh-keys --output json --verbose

you will get this output:

Use existing SSH public key file: /home/halcyoona/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
{- Finished ..
  "fqdns": "",
  "id": "/subscriptions/95623de4-e1df-4c06-9954-bd66314b4bd0/resourceGroups/halcyoona-group/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/master",
  "location": "eastus",
  "macAddress": "00-22-48-20-91-D8",
  "powerState": "VM running",
  "privateIpAddress": "10.0.0.5",
  "publicIpAddress": "13.72.73.153",
  "resourceGroup": "halcyoona-group",
  "zones": ""
}

Now using publicIpAddress, ssh into your master using below command:

ssh halcyoona@13.72.73.153

Now add the repository of the Puppet.

wget https://apt.puppetlabs.com/puppet6-release-bionic.deb
sudo dpkg -i puppet6-release-bionic.deb
sudo apt update

Now install the Puppet Server in the Puppet master virtual machine:

sudo apt-get install puppetserver

Now we create our own CA with uisng following command:

/opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppetserver ca setup

Output:

Generation succeeded. Find your files in /home/halcyoona/.puppetlabs/etc/puppet/ssl/ca

Start the puppet server with using following command:

sudo service puppetserver start

Check the puppet server using following command:

service puppetserver status

Now add the path of the puppet into bashrc. Copy the path of the puppetserver(/opt/puppetlabs/bin)
Edit the bashrc file using vim editor using following command:

vi ~/.bashrc
PATH=$PATH:/opt/puppetlabs/bin

Next run again the bashrc, to get the immediate effect of the changes above.

source ~/.bashrc

Now come to the puppet and check user.

puppet resource user

In output you will get list of users.If you want specific user just mention the user name also as did below:

puppet resource user root

you will get this output:

user { 'root':
  ensure   => 'present',
  comment  => 'root',
  gid      => 0,
  home     => '/root',
  provider => 'useradd',
  shell    => '/bin/bash',
  uid      => 0,
}

To check host resource just type the below command:

puppet resource host

Output:

host { 'ip6-allhosts':
  ensure   => 'present',
  ip       => 'ff02::3',
  provider => 'parsed',
  target   => '/etc/hosts',
}
host { 'ip6-allnodes':
  ensure   => 'present',
  ip       => 'ff02::1',
  provider => 'parsed',
  target   => '/etc/hosts',
}
host { 'ip6-allrouters':
  ensure   => 'present',
  ip       => 'ff02::2',
  provider => 'parsed',
  target   => '/etc/hosts',
}
host { 'ip6-localhost':
  ensure       => 'present',
  host_aliases => ['ip6-loopback'],
  ip           => '::1',
  provider     => 'parsed',
  target       => '/etc/hosts',
}
host { 'ip6-localnet':
  ensure   => 'present',
  ip       => 'fe00::0',
  provider => 'parsed',
  target   => '/etc/hosts',
}
host { 'ip6-mcastprefix':
  ensure   => 'present',
  ip       => 'ff00::0',
  provider => 'parsed',
  target   => '/etc/hosts',
}
host { 'localhost':
  ensure   => 'present',
  ip       => '127.0.0.1',
  provider => 'parsed',
  target   => '/etc/hosts',
}

To get the information about the package resource type the below command in terminal:

puppet resource package

To check the information about your system command is given below:

facter -p

If you want to check the hostname, write the below command in terminal:

facter -p | grep hostname

Output:

2020-08-20 04:10:47.030974 WARN  puppetlabs.facter - skipping external facts for "/home/halcyoona/.puppetlabs/opt/puppet/cache/facts.d": No such file or directory
  hostname => "master",

If you want to check the fully qualified domain name(fqdn e.q = gmail.com), write the following command:

facter -p | grep fqdn

Output:

020-08-20 04:34:02.071476 WARN  puppetlabs.facter - skipping external facts for "/home/halcyoona/.puppetlabs/opt/puppet/cache/facts.d": No such file or directory
  fqdn => "master.grutjxrblrfujbnsj0rhcceohg.bx.internal.cloudapp.net",

Now go to /tmp directory and create the file in /tmp the and write the code.

cd /tmp
touch test01.pp
vi test01.pp

Write the following code in the test01.pp file.

file {'/tmp/config-example':
    ensure => 'file',
    mode => '0664',
    owner => 'root',
    group => 'root',
    content => 'Hello world \n',
}

To check the code written in file above use cat command.

cat test01.pp

Now apply the puppet for this file for master.

puppet apply test01.pp

Output:

Notice: Compiled catalog for master.grutjxrblrfujbnsj0rhcceohg.bx.internal.cloudapp.net in environment production in 0.01 seconds
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/File[/tmp/config-example]/owner: owner changed 'halcyoona' to 'root'
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/File[/tmp/config-example]/group: group changed 'halcyoona' to 'root'
Notice: Applied catalog in 0.02 seconds

To check the file mode.

ls -lh | grep config-example

Now if we change the file mode 0664 to 0644, then check what happened:

vi test01.pp
0664 => 0644

Now apply the Puppet setting using following command:

puppet apply test01.pp

Output:

Notice: Compiled catalog for master.grutjxrblrfujbnsj0rhcceohg.bx.internal.cloudapp.net in environment production in 0.01 seconds
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/File[/tmp/config-example]/mode: mode changed '0664' to '0644'
Notice: Applied catalog in 0.06 seconds

You can see only changes are shown in the output.

Now check the mode of the file config-example using the following command:

ls -lh | grep config-example

Now if someone change the mode using following command:

chmod -R 400 config-example

Now check the mode of the file config-example using the following command:

ls -lh | grep config-example

Apply the Puppet setting again.

puppet apply test01.pp

Output:

Notice: Compiled catalog for master.grutjxrblrfujbnsj0rhcceohg.bx.internal.cloudapp.net in environment production in 0.01 seconds
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/File[/tmp/config-example]/mode: mode changed '0400' to '0644'
Notice: Applied catalog in 0.02 seconds

You can see the file mode is changed by someone and now back to the setting according to our file.

Now we change the Hello world to the hostname of this machine we can get hostname from factor and use it directly in our Puppet file.

vi test01.pp

file {'/temp/config-example':
    ensure => 'file',
    mode => '0664',
    owner => 'root',
    group => 'root',
    content => 'Hello ${hostname} \n',
}

Now apply the Puppet setting using following command:

puppet apply test01.pp

Output:

Notice: Compiled catalog for master.grutjxrblrfujbnsj0rhcceohg.bx.internal.cloudapp.net in environment production in 0.01 seconds
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/File[/tmp/config-example]/content: content changed '{md5}432e1465b459cdc185c4aa650c457a49' to '{md5}1994cc447435603428ba0036937da940'
Notice: Applied catalog in 0.07 seconds

Now I want to install apache2 install and run on the machine.Now along with the file I need a service apache2. But first we need this package to be installed on our machine so Install the package first.

vi test01.pp

package{'apache2':
    ensure => 'installed'
}

service{'apache2':
    ensure => 'running',
    require => Package['apache2']
}

Apply the Puppet setting:

puppet apply test01.pp

Output:

Notice: Compiled catalog for master.grutjxrblrfujbnsj0rhcceohg.bx.internal.cloudapp.net in environment production in 0.56 seconds
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/Package[apache2]/ensure: created
Notice: Applied catalog in 9.84 seconds

Now check the apache2 service with the following command:

service apache2 status

You will see apache2 is installed and now running as well.

That’s it for now in Part-II blog we will establish connection between Puppet master and Puppet agent.