Developer(s) | Puppet |
---|---|
Initial release | 2005 |
Stable release | 5.0.1 (July 19, 2017 | )
Preview release | 4.0-rc1 (April 15, 2015 | )
Repository | github |
Written in | C++ & Clojure from 4.0, Ruby |
Operating system | Linux, Unix-like, Microsoft Windows |
Type | |
License | Apache for >2.7.0, GPL for prior versions |
Website | www |
In computing, Puppet is an open-source software configuration management tool. It runs on many Unix-like systems as well as on Microsoft Windows, and includes its own declarative language to describe system configuration.
Puppet is produced by Puppet, founded by Luke Kanies in 2005. It is written in Ruby and released as free software under the GNU General Public License (GPL) until version 2.7.0 and the Apache License 2.0 after that.
Puppet is designed to manage the configuration of Unix-like and Microsoft Windows systems declaratively. The user describes system resources and their state, either using Puppet's declarative language or a Ruby DSL (domain-specific language). This information is stored in files called "Puppet manifests". Puppet discovers the system information via a utility called Facter, and compiles the Puppet manifests into a system-specific catalog containing resources and resource dependency, which are applied against the target systems. Any actions taken by Puppet are then reported.
Puppet consists of a custom declarative language to describe system configuration, which can be either applied directly on the system, or compiled into a catalog and distributed to the target system via client–server paradigm (using a REST API), and the agent uses system specific providers to enforce the resource specified in the manifests. The resource abstraction layer enables administrators to describe the configuration in high-level terms, such as users, services and packages without the need to specify OS specific commands (such as rpm, yum, apt).