Puppet Best Practices

Preface

This book will do more than help solve problems that you are experiencing today; it is intended to help you prepare for the future. We discuss how to build and deploy highly maintainable Puppet code, with a focus on avoiding problems that you’d only need to fix later (technical debt).

This book does not attempt to explain the basics of using Puppet; instead, we look at how to use Puppet most effectively. This includes the following:

• A review of the design decisions behind Puppet features

• An exploration of patterns for organizing code and data

• A look at the powerful features of Puppet that you might not be using today

• Discussions of common pitfalls and traps when deploying Puppet infrastructure

What Is a Best Practice?

A best practice is the best-known way to use something for positive value while minimizing unnecessary risk. This isn’t defined by the manufacturer, rather by practical experience of users in the field.

Do Best Practices Apply to Us?

This question was posed by a manager not certain that Puppet best practices were something in which his team should invest:

“We don’t make Puppet. We use Puppet to provide our business’ services. We have our own best practices in our field. Do Puppet’s best practices apply to us?”

Best practices don’t tell you how to operate your business or provide your product. That function is provided by the regulatory, legal, and competitive environment in which the business operates.

Best practices inform you how to safely use ...