Configuring Puppet agent on Windows

The Puppet agent comes with a default configuration that you might want to change.

Configure Puppet agent with puppet.conf, using the [agent] section, the [main] section, or both. For more information on which settings are relevant to Puppet agent, see important settings.

Logging for Puppet agent on Windows systems

When running as a service, Puppet agent logs messages to the Windows Event Log. You can view its logs by browsing the Event Viewer. Click Control Panel -> System and Security -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer.

By default, Puppet logs to the Application event log. However, you can configure Puppet to log to a separate Puppet log instead.

To enable the Puppet log, create the requisite registry key by opening a command prompt and running one of the following commands:

Bash:

reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Puppet\Puppet /v EventMessageFile /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "%SystemRoot%\System32\EventCreate.exe"

PowerShell and the New-EventLog cmdlet:

if ([System.Diagnostics.Eventlog]::SourceExists("puppet")) { Remove-EventLog -Source 'puppet' } & New-EventLog -Source puppet -LogName Puppet

Note that for agents older than 5.5.17 on the 5.5.x stream, 6.4.4 on the 6.4.x stream and 6.8.0 on the primary server stream, use the same Bash command listed above, but the following PowerShell command instead:

if ([System.Diagnostics.Eventlog]::SourceExists("puppet")) { Remove-EventLog -Source 'puppet' } & New-EventLog -Source puppet -LogName Puppet  -MessageResource "%SystemRoot%\System32\EventCreate.exe"

After you add the registry key, you need to reboot your machine for the logging to be redirected.

If you are using an older version of Puppet, double check that you have the most up to date path to EventCreate.exe.

For existing agents, these commands can be placed in an exec resource to configure agents going forward.

Any previously recorded event log messages are not moved; only new messages are recorded in the newly created Puppet log.

You can adjust how verbose the logs are with the log_level setting, which defaults to notice.

When running in the foreground with the --verbose, --debug, or --test options, Puppet agent logs directly to the terminal.

When started with the --logdest <FILE> option, Puppet agent logs to the file specified by <FILE>. Note that there are no file size checks for the --logdest <FILE> option.

Reporting for Puppet agent on Windows systems

In addition to local logging, Puppet agent submits a report to the primary server after each run. This can be disabled by setting report = false in puppet.conf.

Setting Puppet agent CPU priority

When CPU usage is high, lower the priority of the Puppet agent service by using the process priority setting, a cross platform configuration option. Process priority can also be set in the primary server configuration.