Where Did Everything Go in Puppet 4.x?

Included in Puppet Enterprise 2015.3. A newer version is available; see the version menu above for details.

In Puppet 4, we changed the locations of a lot of important config files and directories. We also changed Puppet’s packaging to install different things in different places.

This page is a summary, to quickly orient users arriving from Puppet 3.

If you want full details, we’ve written a specification of the directories used by all of Puppet’s tools.

New All-in-One puppet-agent Package

On managed *nix systems, you’ll now install puppet-agent instead of puppet. (This package also provides puppet apply, suitable for standalone Puppet systems.)

This is a new name for a new thing. Instead of using package dependencies to bring in tools like Facter, Hiera, and Ruby, it includes private versions of all of them.

It also includes MCollective.

On Windows, you’ll use the same package as before, but the open source package now includes MCollective.

*nix Executables are in /opt/puppetlabs/bin/

On *nix platforms, the main executables moved to /opt/puppetlabs/bin. This means Puppet and related tools aren’t included in your PATH by default. You’ll need to either:

  • Add /opt/puppetlabs/bin to your PATH
  • Symlink Puppet’s tools to somewhere else in your PATH
  • Use the full path (like /opt/puppetlabs/bin/puppet apply when running Puppet commands

On Windows, executables stayed in the same location, and the MSI package still adds Puppet’s tools to the PATH.

Private bin Dirs

The executables in /opt/puppetlabs/bin are just the “public” applications that make up Puppet. Private supporting commands like ruby and gem are in /opt/puppetlabs/puppet/bin, to keep them from accidentally overriding system tools if you add the public bin dir to your PATH.

*nix confdir is Now /etc/puppetlabs/puppet

Puppet’s system confdir (used by root and the puppet user) is now /etc/puppetlabs/puppet, instead of /etc/puppet. Open source Puppet now uses the same confdir as Puppet Enterprise.

The confdir is the directory that holds config files like puppet.conf and auth.conf.

On Windows, this stayed the same. It’s still in the COMMON_APPDATA folder, defaulting to C:\ProgramData\PuppetLabs\puppet\etc on modern Windows versions.

ssldir is Inside confdir

On some Linux distros, our default config used to set Puppet’s ssldir as $vardir/ssl rather than $confdir/ssl. Now we’re not doing that; the default location is in the confdir on all platforms.

Other Stuff in /etc/puppetlabs

We’re also moving other related configs into the /etc/puppetlabs directory. Puppet Server now uses /etc/puppetlabs/puppetserver, and MCollective uses /etc/puppetlabs/mcollective.

New codedir Holds All Modules/Manifests/Data

All of the content used to configure nodes has moved into a new directory, named codedir. (This stuff used to be in the confdir.)

The default codedir location is:

  • /etc/puppetlabs/code on *nix
  • C:\ProgramData\PuppetLabs\code on Windows
  • <USER DIRECTORY>/.puppetlabs/etc/code if you’re running as a non-root user

The main contents of the codedir are:

  • The environments directory
  • The global modules directory
    • Note: This is only for module versions you specifically want in all environments.
  • The hiera.yaml config file

Directory Environments are Always On

Directory environments are always enabled now.

The default environmentpath is $codedir/environments. On install, we create a directory for the default production environment.

This means that if you’re starting from scratch, you should:

  • Put modules in $codedir/environments/production/modules.
  • Put your main manifest in $codedir/environments/production/manifests.

You can still put global modules in $codedir/modules, and can configure a global main manifest with the default_manifest setting.

Hiera Data Goes in Environments by Default

Hiera’s default settings now use an environment-specific datadir for the YAML and JSON backends. So the production environment’s default Hiera data directory would be /etc/puppetlabs/code/environments/production/hieradata.

Some Other Directories Have Moved

  • The system vardir for puppet agent has moved, and is now separate from Puppet Server’s vardir.
    • On *nix: /opt/puppetlabs/puppet/cache
    • On Windows: C:\ProgramData\PuppetLabs\puppet\cache
  • The rundir, where the service PID files go, has moved:
    • On *nix: /var/run/puppetlabs. (Puppet Server has a puppetserver directory in this directory.)
    • On Windows: C:\ProgramData\PuppetLabs\puppet\var\run — this is the same as before, but it’s now outside the main vardir.

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