How to Install and Configure Puppet 7 Server on Ubuntu 20.04

In this guide, we are going to install Puppet 7 Server Open Source in Ubuntu 20.04. We will set up a Puppet server and an agent and install Nginx using puppet manifests.

Puppet is a software configuration management tool which includes its own declarative language to describe system configuration. It is a model-driven solution that requires limited programming knowledge to use. Puppet operates in an agent-master architecture, in which a master node controls configuration information for a fleet of managed agent nodes.

Puppet is distributed in several packages. These include puppetserver, puppet-agent and puppetdb. Puppet Server controls the configuration information for one or more managed agent nodes. PuppetDB is where the data generated by Puppet is stored.

Prerequisites

To follow along, ensure that you have:

Updated Ubuntu 20.04 Puppet Server and Puppet Agent machine
Root access to the servers
Internet access from the server
Knowledge of Linux terminal

Ensuring the servers are up to date

Before proceeding let us ensure that the server packages are up to date with the following command:

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sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y

Set up Hostname

Puppet uses server hostnames to push manifests to the nodes. Connect to the puppet master.

The set up hostname:

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sudo hostnamectl set-hostname puppetmaster.citizix.com

Ensure the hostname has proper DNS record and also update /etc/hosts file.

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sudo vim /etc/hosts

Add this content:

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10.20.5.51 puppetmaster.citizix.com puppetmaster

Confirm that the hostname reflects:

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$ sudo hostnamectl
   Static hostname: puppetmaster.citizix.com
         Icon name: computer-vm
           Chassis: vm
        Machine ID: ec215f021179fb425bc6e4df9393a66f
           Boot ID: a42cfac1fa654d3cb2a75f127ca8b540
    Virtualization: kvm
  Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS
            Kernel: Linux 5.11.0-1028-aws
      Architecture: x86-64

Confirm that you can reach

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$ ping puppetmaster
PING puppetmaster.citizix.com (127.0.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from puppetmaster.citizix.com (127.0.1.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.018 ms
64 bytes from puppetmaster.citizix.com (127.0.1.1): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.030 ms
^C
--- puppetmaster.citizix.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1008ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.018/0.024/0.030/0.006 ms

Install Puppet Server

Enabling the Puppet platform repository makes the components needed for installation available on your system.

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curl -LO https://apt.puppet.com/puppet7-release-focal.deb
sudo dpkg -i ./puppet7-release-focal.deb

Puppet Server is a required application that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on the primary server.

In addition to hosting endpoints for the certificate authority service, Puppet Server also powers the catalog compiler, which compiles configuration catalogs for agent nodes, using Puppet code and various other data sources.

In this section, you will install the puppetserver package and start the service.

Install the Puppet Server package

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sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y puppetserver

Configure Puppet Master and Agent

After the installation is complete, we need to configure the memory allocation for puppetserver. We will set the max memory allocation for puppetserver to 1GB.

Edit the ‘puppetserver’ configuration using vim.

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sudo vim /etc/default/puppetserver

Now change the line as below, then save and exit.

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JAVA_ARGS="-Xms1g -Xmx1g ..."

Define Puppet Master FQDN and DNS alternative names:

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sudo vim /etc/puppetlabs/puppet/puppet.conf

Add the DNS settings under the [server] section.

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[server]
vardir = /opt/puppetlabs/server/data/puppetserver
logdir = /var/log/puppetlabs/puppetserver
rundir = /var/run/puppetlabs/puppetserver
pidfile = /var/run/puppetlabs/puppetserver/puppetserver.pid
codedir = /etc/puppetlabs/code
dns_alt_names=puppetmaster.citizix,puppetmaster

Add main section - this is the puppet agent configs.

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[main]
certname = puppetmaster.citizix.com
server = puppetmaster.citizix.com
environment = production
runinterval = 30m

Starting and enabling puppet service

Once the in stallation and configuration is done, we can start the puppet server using this command:

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sudo systemctl start puppetserver

Check status of puppetserver using this command:

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$ sudo systemctl status puppetserver
 puppetserver.service - puppetserver Service
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/puppetserver.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2022-03-03 21:29:15 UTC; 11s ago
    Process: 19488 ExecStart=/opt/puppetlabs/server/apps/puppetserver/bin/puppetserver start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 19515 (java)
      Tasks: 45 (limit: 4915)
     Memory: 978.2M
     CGroup: /system.slice/puppetserver.service
             &#x2514;&#x2500;19515 /usr/bin/java -Xms2g -Xmx2g -Djruby.logger.class=com.puppetlabs.jruby_utils.jruby.Slf4jLogger -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError=kill -9 %p -XX:ErrorFile=/var>

Mar 03 21:28:50 puppetmaster.citizix.com systemd[1]: Starting puppetserver Service...
Mar 03 21:29:15 puppetmaster.citizix.com systemd[1]: Started puppetserver Service.

Check if you installed the Puppet Server correctly, by running: puppetserver -v

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$ puppetserver -v
puppetserver version: 7.6.0

Now you can enable puppet server to always start on boot:

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sudo systemctl enable puppetserver

Open Service Port on the firewall

With the service started, open the port on the firewall so you can access the server from the network. This is only needed if you enforce firewall rules and you have firewalld installed.

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sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=8140/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Add Puppet Binary folder to $PATH

Puppet binaries are located in /opt/puppetlabs/bin. This directory by default is not in your $PATH.

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echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/opt/puppetlabs/bin' | tee -a ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Start the Puppet client

Let’s start puppet agent service as we’ll use it for some testing.

Let us register the puppet agent to the puppet master.

Start puppet agent:

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sudo systemctl start puppet

Check the status using this command:

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$ sudo systemctl status puppet
 puppet.service - Puppet agent
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/puppet.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2022-03-03 21:32:35 UTC; 5s ago
   Main PID: 19779 (puppet)
      Tasks: 1 (limit: 4624)
     Memory: 61.5M
     CGroup: /system.slice/puppet.service
             &#x2514;&#x2500;19779 /opt/puppetlabs/puppet/bin/ruby /opt/puppetlabs/puppet/bin/puppet agent --no-daemonize

Mar 03 21:32:35 puppetmaster.citizix.com systemd[1]: Started Puppet agent.
Mar 03 21:32:36 puppetmaster.citizix.com puppet-agent[19779]: Starting Puppet client version 7.14.0
Mar 03 21:32:38 puppetmaster.citizix.com puppet-agent[19780]: Applied catalog in 0.01 seconds

Verify the Puppet Agent Configuration

After the puppet master signed the certificate file for the agent, run command below on the puppet agent to verify the configuration

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# puppet agent --test
Info: Using environment 'production'
Info: Retrieving pluginfacts
Info: Retrieving plugin
Info: Caching catalog for puppetmaster.citizix.com
Info: Applying configuration version '1646343518'
Notice: Applied catalog in 0.02 secondscp

The Puppet agent pulled the configuration from the puppet master and applied to the server without any error.

Create Simple Manifest to Deploy Nginx

With the puppet master and agent installation and configuration complete, let us create a simple manifest for testing. We will create a manifest to install Nginx web server.

The puppet manifess will be stored in the environment specific directory in the /etc/puppetlabs/code/environments/<env> path. We have defined production in our case so let’s switch to the production manifests directory using this:

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cd /etc/puppetlabs/code/environments/production/manifests
```

Create new manifest file.

```sh
vim site.pp
```

Paste the following configuration.

```conf
node 'puppetmaster.citizix.com' {
     package { 'nginx':
         ensure  => "installed",
     }
     service { 'nginx':
         ensure => running,
         enable => true
     }
 }
```

Save and exit.

Now open the puppet agent server shell and run the command below.

```sh
puppet agent -t
```

The command will retrieve new manifest configuration file from the puppet master and then apply it to the agent server.

You can also apply the changes using the puppet apply command.

Following is the result.

```sh
# puppet parser validate site.pp
# puppet apply site.pp
Notice: Compiled catalog for puppetmaster.citizix.com in environment production in 0.33 seconds
Notice: /Stage[main]/Main/Node[puppetmaster.citizix.com]/Package[nginx]/ensure: created
Notice: Applied catalog in 6.06 seconds
```

You can check Nginx using this command:

```sh
$ sudo systemctl status nginx
&#x25CF; nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2022-03-03 21:40:32 UTC; 1min 44s ago
       Docs: man:nginx(8)
   Main PID: 20439 (nginx)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 4624)
     Memory: 4.3M
     CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
             &#x251C;&#x2500;20439 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;
             &#x251C;&#x2500;20440 nginx: worker process
             &#x2514;&#x2500;20441 nginx: worker process

Mar 03 21:40:32 puppetmaster.citizix.com systemd[1]: Starting A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server...
Mar 03 21:40:32 puppetmaster.citizix.com systemd[1]: Started A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server.
```

The nginx web server has been installed using the puppet manifest.

## Conclusion

We managed to install and configure the Puppet Master and Puppet Agent on Ubuntu 20.04 Server successfully.