Puppet users - Dec 2012 - Avoiding a ball of yarn and technical debt

Backgrond: I''m one of two unix admins, we ''own'' 150
unix hosts.  Most
Solaris, but we''re starting to transition from that to Oracle Linux.

I''ve got my puppet 2.7 running ''ok'' on my test hosts,
have spent a
fair bit of my time since September getting up to speed on Puppet.

Starting January I''ll be ready to start rolling them out to my
development, then production, hosts.  Our deployment will be gradual,
and slowly moving services and hosts from managed by bash script to
managed by puppet as time permits.

I''m taking advantage of the holidays to check my assumptions on
''how''
I''m building Puppet.

My goals are

- Enable my partner to understand ''what'' I''m up to
i.e. make it as
self-documenting as possible
- Ditto the three other guys on my team who assist us in Unix chores
part-time, and are our backups.
- Prevent the whole mess from turning into a snarled yarn-ball.

Questions:

Would it be better pause for a few weeks and upgrade to Puppet 2.7 > 3 now?
Is there consensus on the best way to avoid a yarn-ball of messy code?




-- 
Brian Dunbar

"Display some adaptability"

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On 12/27/2012 12:47 AM, Brian Dunbar wrote:
> Questions:
>
> Would it be better pause for a few weeks and upgrade to Puppet 2.7 > 3
now?
If you can afford it - then absolutely.

> Is there consensus on the best way to avoid a yarn-ball of messy code?
Use at least puppet parser validate + puppet-lint in pre-commit hook, 
keep your code in modules and not in site.pp, and try to separate data 
from the code via hiera, and you''ll be pretty much OK.



-- 
Jakov Sosic
www.srce.unizg.hr

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On Thursday, December 27, 2012 12:47:51 AM UTC+1, Brian Dunbar wrote:
> - Enable my partner to understand ''what'' I''m up
to i.e. make it as
> self-documenting as possible 
> - Ditto the three other guys on my team who assist us in Unix chores 
> part-time, and are our backups. 
> - Prevent the whole mess from turning into a snarled yarn-ball. 
>
> Questions: 
>
> Would it be better pause for a few weeks and upgrade to Puppet 2.7 > 3 
> now? 
> Is there consensus on the best way to avoid a yarn-ball of messy code? 
>
I''m new here, but from my experience:
* Make sure you understand the concept of encapsulation and watch out for 
inproper use of modules, variables, etc. Avoid the "quick fix" that
cuts
corners.

* Don''t automate too much at once. I''d suggest to start
bottom-up, with
simple stuff like configuring syslog or sshd, or maybe create sysadmin 
users on all boxes. Things that are the same on all systems. But: put all 
aspects of a particular service in. Make sure you know what is puppetized 
and what isn''t. 

* When you''ve finished writing puppet code for a project, destroy the 
(virtual) server and deploy from scratch again. Make sure your work can be 
reproduced.

* Actively tend to your code like you would a garden. Check for things to 
remove, clarify and improve. Keep it clean, clear and relevant. Your ideas 
and code will change over time, so start simple and get back to it every 
once in a while.

* Write down what you''ve learned and actively coach your partner.
It''s a
learning process that you both need to go through. Never be the only one to 
know how things work or say goodbye to holidays :-)

* Keep a consistent style in names, module structure, comments. Discuss 
with your partners and make sure you''re on the same page. Get a grip on
change management (commits, testing, deployment, rollback). Keep in mind 
that you''re working on 150 boxes at once. 

* Use monitoring, use dashboard or at least centralized syslog of puppet 
agents. Make sure you know when boxes don''t have their puppet agent
running.

To the others: feel free to complain if I''m missing the boat here.
First
post...

Best,

Hans van der Made
Utrecht University
NL

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