Puppet Types and Providers

Appendix B. Modules

Puppet modules are a collection of components for managing a specific service. Modules allow the greater Puppet community to share and reuse code to deploy the same service across a wide range of environments. Complex infrastructures are typically composed of several smaller modules. Examples of modules can be found at puppetlabs.

Modules conform to a directory structure that organizes content as follows:

module_name
  |-- manifests
  |-- files
  |-- templates
  |-- tests
  |-- lib
  `-- spec

Each subfolder contains the following files:

manifests

Puppet classes and defined resource types are located in a manifest file (.pp extension) in this directory.

lib

Ruby extensions (.rb extension) are located in this directory. This includes custom facts, functions, types, and providers.

spec

Ruby Rspec test files are located in this directory. Rspec files are used to implement unit tests for Ruby source code or Puppet manifests.

files

Files distributed to Puppet agents via source ⇒ puppet:///modules/module_name/ are located in this directory.

templates

Ruby ERB (*.erb) templates are located in this directory. They are typically used by the file resource’s content property, via content ⇒ template(module_name/some_template.erb).

tests

Puppet .pp manifest files containing declaration of classes and resources.

Modules must conform to this directory structure so that Puppet knows how to access and use the content from modules to extend itself. All Ruby extensions for Puppet ...