= Puppet layout and deployment =

== Deployment ==

Traditionally, puppet uses a puppet master, which is a dedicated server that has a copy of the puppet configuration files. Each node runs a puppet process as root that contacts the master, receives the catalog specific to the server they are running, and then executes the catalog.

MF/PL does not use a puppet master. Instead of having a single server with the puppet configuration files, we have distributed the configuration files to every server (aka node) on our network via git, placing the files in /etc/puppet. 

Each node runs a cron job that does a `git remote update` against git://git.mayfirst.org/. It checks for the most recent git tag that is signed by a member of the MFPL support team, merges that tag, and then runs puppet.

Alternatively, MFPL admins can push changes into a puppet bare repo on each node, which will run a post-update hook that pulls the changes into /etc/puppet and runs puppet.

== Layout ==

 * manifests
 	* globals.pp: global variables specific to May First/People Link, used throughout
	* modules.pp: one line to import every puppet module that we use
	* site.pp: this is the file that boostraps all other files
  * nodes
	 * production: one file for every production server in our network
	 * dev: place test and dev server definitions here 
 * modules: modules are abstracted collections of manifests, templates and files. They are intended to be re-usable by others. In addition to several modules that we have borrowed from others and written ourselves, our modules directory contains a module called "mayfirst" which contains our collection of configurations that specific to us. Most development work will happen in this module.