Slides from a talk I gave at PuppetConf 2014. Abstract: Puppet is an incredibly powerful tool, and part of that power is its flexibility. Flexibility often leads to a wide range of ideas on implementation. I've consulted on countless Puppet implementations, and I've seen the entire spectrum, ranging from bat-shit insane to picture perfect. But even the bat-shit insane implementations worked (to a point), and at some point, what seemed bat-shit to me was picture perfect to the folks running it. As I got to understand some of the unique implementations, I started to ask myself: if there's no clear right way to implement Puppet, is there a particularly effective way? When trying to answer this question I started by looking at the teams who got it right, and a pattern quickly emerged. All of these teams had common behaviors that went far beyond policies and procedures. These behaviors were broadly understood by team members, nearly universally adhered to, and almost second nature. These habits led to more stable, maintainable, and well understood Puppet deployments. In this talk, I'll share with you the behaviors I saw and discuss how you can turn these seemingly obvious best practices into habits amongst your team members.

1. Seven Habits of Highly Effective
Puppet Users
David Danzilio
@djdanzilio
1

2. $(whoami)
2

3. What’s talk this about?

4. A collection of observations of high
performing Puppet users

5. Habits?

8. What’s a habit?

9. “[A habit is] an acquired behavior
pattern regularly followed until it
has become almost involuntary”

10. Habits are hard

12. You don’t think about habits

13. Seven Habits
• Think like a software developer
• Treat Puppet like code
• Stop, drop, and design
• Test all the things
• Continuous integration and deployment
• Make nice with Ruby
• Get involved

14. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Habit #1
Think like a software developer
14Habit 1: Think like a software developer

15. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
You’re not a system administrator
anymore
15Habit 1: Think like a software developer

16. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
You’re a software developer
16Habit 1: Think like a software developer

18. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
System Administration
≠
Software Development
18Habit 1: Think like a software developer

19. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Why did we think this would be
easy?!
19Habit 1: Think like a software developer

20. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Puppet is easy because it’s a DSL
20Habit 1: Think like a software developer

21. FALSEFALSE

22. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
We just made it easy to write bad
code
22Habit 1: Think like a software developer

23. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
You can’t expect people to be good
at something they’ve never done
23Habit 1: Think like a software developer

24. I’m a doctor, not an engineer.I’m a doctor, not an engineer.24

25. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Software engineering is a mature
discipline
25Habit 1: Think like a software developer

26. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
This is particularly important in
Puppet 4
26Habit 1: Think like a software developer

27. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Habit #2
Treat Puppet like code
27Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

28. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Stop thinking of Puppet
as just configuration data
28Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

29. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Infrastructure as
CODE
29Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

30. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Infrastructure as
CODE
30Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

32. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Version Control
32Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

34. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Documentation
34Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

36. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
README
36Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

38. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Inline documentation
38Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

40. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Refactoring
40Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

41. ***

42. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Code Review
42Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

43. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Style
43Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

44. 44

45. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
puppet-lint
45Habit 2: Treat Puppet like code

46. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Habit #3
Stop, drop, and design
46Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

47. 47
**

48. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Software needs to be designed
48Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

49. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Separation of Concerns
49Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

50. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Package, File, Service
50Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

51. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Roles and Profiles
51Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

52. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Identify Interfaces
52Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

53. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
What information does your
module need?
53Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

54. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Where does that information
come from?
54Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

55. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Where does that information
need to go?
55Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

56. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Public and Private classes
56Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

57. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Data Separation
57Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

58. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Data in your Puppet
code is bad
58Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

59. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Hiera
59Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

60. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
params
60Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

61. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Module data
61Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

62. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Stability
62Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

63. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Identify a stable feature set
63Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

64. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Semantic Versioning
64Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

65. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Simplicity
65Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

66. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
UNIX Philosophy
66Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

67. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Focus on your module’s core
functionality
67Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

68. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Hooks
68Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

69. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
class jabberd (
...
$manage_package = true,
$manage_repository = false,
$manage_service = true,
...
) {
...
}
69Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

70. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Write modules as if they’re going to
be open sourced
70Habit 3: Stop, drop, and design

71. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Habit #4
Test all the things
71Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

73. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
The toolchain has improved
dramatically
73Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

74. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Testing has become relatively
inexpensive
74Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

75. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Your infrastructure is too important
to not test
75Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

77. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
How?
77Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

78. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
puppet-syntax
78Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

79. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
rspec-puppet
79Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

80. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
describe ‘myclass’ do
it { should compile.with_all_deps }
end
80Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

81. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
beaker
81Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

82. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users 82Habit 4: Create a culture of testing
kitchen-ci

83. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
serverspec
83Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

84. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
describe package('httpd') do
it { should be_installed }
end
describe service('httpd') do
it { should be_enabled }
it { should be_running }
end
describe port(80) do
it { should be_listening }
end
84Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

85. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Why test Puppet?
85Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

86. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Complexity
86Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

88. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Test first!
88Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

89. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Make your tests count
89Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

91. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
it do
should contain_file(‘/etc/ssh/sshd_config’).with({
‘ensure’ => ‘present’,
‘owner’ => ‘root’,
‘group’ => ‘root’,
‘mode’ => ‘0644’,
})
end
91Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

92. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
context ‘with port => 2222’ do
let(:params) {{ :port => ‘2222’ }}
it do
should
contain_file(‘/etc/ssh/sshd_config’).with_content(
%r{Port 2222}
)
end
end
92Habit 4: Create a culture of testing

93. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Habit #5
Continuous Integration and
Deployment
93Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

94. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Build a pipeline
94Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

96. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Automated testing
96Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

97. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Unit Tests
97Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

98. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Integration Tests
98Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

99. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Acceptance tests
99Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

100. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Test under real world conditions
100Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

102. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users

103. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Puppet versions
103Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

104. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Operating System versions
104Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

105. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Ruby versions
105Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

106. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Dependency versions
106Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

107. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Automated deployment
107Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

108. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
librarian-puppet, r10k,
MCollective, Capistrano
108Habit 5: Continuous integration and deployment

109. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Habit #6
Make nice with Ruby
109Habit 6: Make nice with Ruby

111. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Puppet is Ruby
111Habit 6: Make nice with Ruby

112. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Get over it
112Habit 6: Make nice with Ruby

114. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Why?
114Habit 6: Make nice with Ruby

115. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
rake
115Habit 6: Make nice with Ruby

116. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
rspec
116Habit 6: Make nice with Ruby

117. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
bundler
117Habit 6: Make nice with Ruby

118. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
guard
118Habit 6: Make nice with Ruby

119. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Custom Types, Providers, and Facts
119Habit 6: Make nice with Ruby

120. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
If you want to do anything
advanced
120Habit 6: Make nice with Ruby

121. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Habit #7
Get involved
121Habit 7: Get involved

122. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Puppet is rapidly evolving
122Habit 7: Get involved

123. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Your experience is valuable
123Habit 7: Get involved

124. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Share your modules
124Habit 7: Get involved

125. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Speak at conferences
125Habit 7: Get involved

126. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Answer questions
126Habit 7: Get involved

127. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Puppet Users
Blog about it
127Habit 7: Get involved

128. Questions?

129. Thank you!

130. David Danzilio
@djdanzilio
http://blog.danzilio.net

131. Image Credits
• http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/File:Homer-simpson-brain,1280x800,18857.jpg
• https://dcarchives.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/habit-change-1964-mcphee-priller.jpg
• http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3plfef
• http://www.quickmeme.com/Bad-Habit-Bruce
• http://www.mememaker.net/static/images/templates/747303.jpg
• http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/230191-wtf-is-this-shit
• http://programmerryangosling.tumblr.com/image/22790837971
• http://www.quickmeme.com/img/d3/d36ad81bae0a8d69cd91f81065d8b0a19d9dfc1b63753093992282d6aa8b35dd.jpg
• http://www.avatar3trailer.com/gangnam-style/gangnam_style_psy_05.jpg
• http://www.troll.me/images/pissed-off-obama/refactor-your-fucking-code.jpg
• http://www.globalnerdy.com/2011/05/30/ruby-foo/
• http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3twnp6
• http://smashingboxes.com/ideas/beginners-guide-to-test-driven-development-tdd
• http://www.pythian.com/blog/service-reliability-how-systems-administration-is-evolving-part-one/
• http://www.troll.me/2012/03/07/uncategorized/dont-worry-guys-i-got-programmer-cred/
• http://www.savthecoder.com/blog/saturday-meme-5-futurama-fry-tests-his-new-method
• http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3uc80p/
• http://i.qkme.me/3tde6j.jpg
• http://i.qkme.me/3sekdw.jpg
• http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3sm9k1?id=229466593
• http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HUSSKWWg-0c/maxresdefault.jpg
• http://blog.15five.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Hypnosis_for_bad_habits_nyc.jpg
• http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-rtfm-27/