Configuration management tool to facilitate managing our (Linux) cluster head nodes, other Linux servers, and our Linux desktops. Works with other OSes (MacOS, Windows), but we'll first focus on Linux.


http://docs.puppetlabs.com/#puppetpuppet

Watch 5 minute video ion this page:

http://info.puppetlabs.com/download-learning-puppet-VM.html

Excerpts from "Puppet 3 Beginner's Guide", by John Arundel (April 17, 2013): \[read  full book for free via CU Library's Safari subscription\]
Configuration  management tools: This is roughly the situation we have now. Several  different CM systems have been developed over the years, with new ones  coming along all the time, but only a few have achieved significant  market share. At the time of writing, at least for UNIX-like systems,  these CM systems are Puppet, Chef, and CFEngine. There really isn't much  to choose between these different systems. They all solve more or less  the same problems - the ones we saw earlier in this chapter - in more or  less the same way. Some people prefer the Puppet way of doing things;  some people are more comfortable with Chef, and so on. But essentially,  these, and many other CM systems, are all great solutions to the CM  problem, and it's not very important which one you choose as long as you  choose one.
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Infrastructure as code: Once we start writing programs to configure machines, we get some benefits right away. We can adopt the tools and techniques that regular programmers - who write code in Ruby or Java, for example - have used for years:

This can make us more agile and flexible as system administrators, able to deal with fast-changing requirements and deliver things quickly to the business. We can also produce higher-quality, more reliable work.
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Re: Other configuration management tools:

http://bitfieldconsulting.com/puppet-vs-chef

http://www.opscode.com/chef/#which-chef

https://cfengine.com/what-is-cfengine