= Puppet =

MF/PL is moving toward puppet as a system administration infrastructure.


== administering puppet ==

puppet can be intimidating.  If you want to help with the administration, here's instructions to get started:

=== setting up a development environment ===

Get the configuration:

{{{
git clone git://git.mayfirst.org/mfpl/puppet
cd puppet
git submodule init
git submodule update
}}}

And as the superuser, install the tools:
{{{
apt-get install puppet-common
}}}

then copy and update the sample configs to refer to your current environment:
{{{
cp puppet.conf.sample puppet.conf
cp fileserver.conf.sample fileserver.conf
$EDITOR puppet.conf fileserver.conf
}}}

some important changes to consider:

 * repoint `[files] path` in `fileserver.conf`
 * make a simple `var` dir for your dev puppetmaster to stash its data 
 * repoint all the explicit dirs in `puppet.conf` to the `var` dir

Then you can launch the puppet master as a non-privileged user from the checked-out directory:

{{{
puppet master --confdir=$(pwd) --no-daemonize --verbose
}}}