Learning Puppet 4

Chapter 28. Running the Puppet Agent on Windows

The fastest-growing segment of Puppet users is companies who utilize Puppet agent to manage their Windows nodes. Puppet brings a configuration management toolset (and mindset) to Windows administration far beyond the tools provided by Microsoft. The Windows admins I have met who have become Puppet users cannot imagine how they would do without it now.

Puppet on Windows with the Puppet Labs Supported modules provides the ability to:

• Create, modify, and remove users and groups
• Install and configure applications
• Manage registry keys and values
• Download and execute PowerShell and cmd scripts
• Control icons on the user’s desktop
• Build IIS sites and applications
• Install and manage SQL Server

Everything you’ve already learned about Puppet applies to Puppet on Windows. For the remainder of this chapter, we’ll review the differences between Windows and Linux nodes.

Creating a Windows Virtual Machine

If you want to build a Windows virtual machine for testing against the Puppet Server virtual machine used in this book, follow the steps outlined in the following sections.

Tip

If you aren’t using the Vagrant virtual machines as your learning environment, skip ahead to “Installing Puppet on Windows”.

Creating a VirtualBox Windows VM

To create a Windows virtual machine, start the VirtualBox Manager program as follows (see Figure 28-1):

• Mac: Applications → VirtualBox
• Windows: Start Menu → Programs|Apps → VirtualBox → VirtualBox Manager

Create ...