Using Ansible to deploy a PuppetMaster

The Problem

Need to deploy a new Puppet Enterprise cluster with a PuppetMaster, PuppetConsole and a PuppetDB while avoiding typos and misconfigurations. Also need to deploy to several environments using a consistent configuration.

The Solution

Use Ansible to deploy Puppet onto freshly built servers that contain just a SysAdmins SSH public key.

The Goal

A repeatable and documented way to deploy the very finicky Puppet installer in any environment needed from local vagrants to the clouds of vSphere, AWS, RackSpace or Digital Ocean.

GitHub Repo

github.com/e30chris/Ansible-PuppetEnterpriseDeploy

Playbook notes

Setting the variables for each environment

sandor@theargo cd ~/Ansible-PuppetEnterpriseDeploy/
sandor@theargo cat group_vars/all
---
# common variables for PuppetMaster Deployment
# format for this file
# variable: fact
#
# version of Puppet Enterprise
pe_version: 3.2.3

# os family
os_family: debian
os_version: 7
os_arch: amd64

# pe installer
pe_installer: puppet-enterprise-{{ pe_version }}-{{ os_family }}-{{ os_version }}-{{ os_arch }}

# hostnames
pupmaster_hostname: pupmaster.argo.local
pupdb_hostname: pupdb.argo.local
pupconsole_hostname: pupconsole.argo.local

# IP's
pupmaster_ip: 10.0.0.10
pupdb_ip: 10.0.0.11
pupconsole_ip: 10.0.0.12

# dns salt hostnames
pupmaster_salt_hostnames: puppet,puppetmaster
pupdb_salt_hostnames: puppetdb
pupconsole_salt_hostname: pupconsole

# passwords
console_auth_db_pass: arandompasswordthatneedschangedhere
console_db_pass: arandompasswordthatneedschangedhere
pupdb_db_pass: arandompasswordthatneedschangedhere
db_root_pass: arandompasswordthatneedschangedhere

To keep it simple only the values that should be changed are assigned variables. Everything else is left with the Puppet defaults in the answer files.

Tasks to be run on all servers

Puppet needs very perfect name resolution between all agents and the PuppetMaster. Having a perfect hosts file on each server is required.

- name: Ensure common etc hosts file
  template:
    src="../templates/hosts.j2"
    dest=/etc/hosts

To keep things simple all the installation tasks will run out of a /puppetinstall directory. This should be in the user home dir that is running the installer. The examples here use root but the SysAdmin Bible states never use root always use sudo.

- name: Ensure Puppet installer directory present
  file:
    path=/root/puppetinstall
    state=directory

- name: Ensure install log present
  file:
    path=/root/puppetinstall/pupconsole_install.log
    owner=root
    state=touch

When you download the PE tarball you can grab the download url from S3. This grabs the version you need and extracts it into the installer dir.

- name: Ensure PE tarball present
  get_url:
    url=https://s3.amazonaws.com/pe-builds/released/{{ pe_version }}/{{ pe_installer }}.tar.gz
    dest=/root/peinstaller.tar.gz
    force=no

- name: Ensure Puppet untar'd to install directory
  unarchive:
    copy=no
    src=https://theargo.io/root/peinstaller.tar.gz
    dest=/root/puppetinstall

Tasks that run on each server role

Each server then runs the same basic installer command with a few things named for each role like the installer log.

Here is the PuppetMasters install-

---
# Tasks for PupMaster
- name: Ensure install log present
  file:
    path=/root/puppetinstall/pupmaster_install.log
    owner=root
    state=touch

- name: answer file for PupMaster
  template:
    src="../templates/pupmaster.answer.j2"
    dest=/root/puppetinstall/pupmaster.answer
    owner=root

- name: run the pe installer
  command: /root/puppetinstall/{{ pe_installer }}/puppet-enterprise-installer -a /root/puppetinstall/pupmaster.answer -l /root/puppetinstall/pupmaster_install.log