jcbollinger.... Rspec? I have never even heard of that, not even during my Puppet Training (in a classroom). That's interesting.
Jcbollinger, I think your explanation has unclouded my understanding quite a bit - thank you. Also, my shop uses 'puppet agent -t' on the command line when we want to *demand* a system be updated and we know it is a good candidate for being updated; otherwise, we do use something in the crontab to update the system every 15 minutes or something like that. Thank you all, JC, Henrik, and Jeff for trying to explain. I hope not to be so dense when it comes to these questions and concepts, but I am a sysadmin more than a software developer, and Puppet Administration seems to be directly in the sweetspot that I can't quite reach yet. I am getting there, but I must keep asking the community for its help and clarification. *Sometimes, RTFM doesn't work.* Thank you all again. -------------------------- Warron French On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 9:38 AM, jcbollinger <john.bollin...@stjude.org> wrote: > > > On Wednesday, February 17, 2016 at 7:10:29 PM UTC-6, Warron French wrote: >> >> Can someone please clearly explain why/when to use: >> puppet apply versus Puppet agent? >> > > > Responding to your specific (mis)understandings: > > >> I believe, but I want to be thoroughly corrected, the following: >> 1. puppet apply (with --noop) is for 'smoke' testing a specific >> manifest .PP-file, but >> > > > Not really, unless you ordinarily use 'puppet apply' (*without* --noop) > to build and apply catalogs. > > Your manifests and data need to be present on the host where you build the > catalog, but they do not necessarily need to be present on the node to > which you apply a catalog. If your nodes ordinarily obtain their catalogs > via the agent, then they probably don't have the manifests and data. > Moreover, some aspects of catalog building can produce different results > depending on where they run. > > Additionally, the community's conventional choice for testing Puppet > modules is Rspec. > > > >> 2. puppet apply will apply a single (specified on cli) module in reality; >> but, >> > > > Not necessarily. 'puppet apply' will build a catalog locally, starting > from the manifest file you specify to it, and referencing other manifests > and data as necessary. If successful, it will then apply the catalog to > the node on which it is running. To the best of my knowledge, the only > essential difference between the catalog building process performed by the > master and the one performed by 'puppet apply' is how the starting-point > manifest(s) are chosen. Note also that the manifest you specify to 'apply' > does not have to belong to a module. > > > >> 3. a puppet agent -t searches the deltas of files tracked by the Puppet >> Master and applies all changes for all modules wherever the modules are >> actually appropriate candidates. >> > > > No, I think that's a poor characterization. 'puppet agent' requests that > the master build a catalog for the local node, and then applies that > catalog; together these constitute a "catalog run". Depending on the > options you specify, the agent may do this just once, or it may run as a > daemon, performing catalog runs on a configurable schedule. The second > stage, applying the catalog received from the master, is no different when > performed by the agent than when performed by 'puppet apply'. The first > stage differs mainly in where it is performed. Where a master is in use, it > typically does far more than track files. For its part, the agent has > nothing to do with deciding *what* to apply; its job is to determine *how* > to apply it. > > > Overall, I suspect that your misunderstandings are based, in part, on an > idea that you would routinely have use for both 'puppet agent' and 'puppet > apply'. Typically, however, a Puppet shop will use either one or the > other, not both. > > > John > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Puppet Users" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to puppet-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/puppet-users/80c5bf43-87bd-4f89-b5a1-8147c4a86a7e%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/puppet-users/80c5bf43-87bd-4f89-b5a1-8147c4a86a7e%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Puppet Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to puppet-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/puppet-users/CAJdJdQmzM8cLx2bpA%3DQeof1bEMKxBi_EQooD8gxkzTBDDF6XCA%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
