PuppetDB CLI

For Puppet Enterprise you have the ability to install the PuppetDB CLI via the pe-client-tools package. If you are installing pe-client-tools please see the pe-client-tools installation instructions for instructions on installing the PuppetDB CLI on either a workstation managed or unmanaged by Puppet.

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Step 1: Install and configure Puppet

If Puppet isn't fully installed and configured install it and request, sign, and retrieve a certificate for the node.

Your node should be running the Puppet agent and have a signed certificate from your Puppet Server. If you run puppet agent --test, it should successfully complete a run, ending with Notice: Applied catalog in X.XX seconds.

It is helpful to add the Puppet bin, /opt/puppetlabs/bin, and man, /opt/puppetlabs//client-tools/share/man, directories to your PATH and MANPATH directories respectively. For example,

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$ export PATH=/opt/puppetlabs/bin:$PATH
$ export MANPATH=/opt/puppetlabs/client-tools/share/man:$MANPATH

The rest of this documentation assumes that these two directories have been added to their proper path configurations.

Step 2: Install and configure the PuppetDB CLI

Install the PuppetDB CLI from Rubygems:

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$ gem install --bindir /opt/puppetlabs/bin puppetdb_cli

If you are installing the PuppetDB CLI on a machine that does not have Puppet installed, such as your own workstation, you can install the executables to Ruby's standard bindir by omitting the --bindir option.

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$ gem install puppetdb_cli

If the node you installed the CLI on is not the same node as your PuppetDB server, you will need to add the CLI node's certname to the PuppetDB certificate-allowlist and specify the paths to the CLI node's cacert, cert, and private key when using the CLI either with flags or a configuration file.

To configure the PuppetDB CLI to talk to your PuppetDB with flags, add a configuration file at $HOME/.puppetlabs/client-tools/puppetdb.conf (or %USERPROFILE%\.puppetlabs\client-tools\puppetdb.conf for Windows). For more details see the installed man page:

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$ man puppetdb_conf

The PuppetDB CLI configuration files (the user-specified or global files) can take the following settings:

  • server_urls Either a JSON String (for a single url) or Array (for multiple urls) of your PuppetDB servers to query or manage via the CLI commands. (You can set this with the puppetdb_urls parameter in the puppet_enterprise::profile::controller class for PE.)

    Default value: https://127.0.0.1:8080

  • cacert The path for the CA cert.

    *nix sytems - /etc/puppetlabs/puppet/ssl/certs/ca.pem

    Windows - C:\ProgramData\PuppetLabs\puppet\etc\ssl\certs\ca.pem

  • cert An SSL certificate signed by your site's Puppet CA. Note that the PE version of the CLI supports token auth via puppet-access and this option should not be necessary.

  • key The private key for that certificate. Note that the PE version of the CLI supports token auth via puppet-access and this option should not be necessary.

Example configuration file (pe-client-tools)

The PE version of the PuppetDB CLI supports token auth so the only necessary configuration items are server_urls and cacert.

You can still use certificate authentication with the PE version (see below for an example configuration) but setting cert and key in the PuppetDB CLI configuration will prevent you from using token authentication (for example, certificate authentication takes precendence over token authentication).
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{
  "puppetdb": {
    "server_urls": "https://<PUPPETDB_HOST>:8081",
    "cacert": "/etc/puppetlabs/puppet/ssl/certs/ca.pem"
  }
}

On Windows, escape slashes in the CA certificate path.

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{
  "puppetdb": {
    "server_urls": "https://<PUPPETDB_HOST>:8081",
    "cacert": "C:\\ProgramData\\PuppetLabs\\puppet\\etc\\ssl\\certs\\ca.pem"
  }
}

Example configuration file (puppet-client-tools)

The open source version of the PuppetDB CLI requires certificate authentication for SSL connections to PuppetDB. To configure certificate authentication set cacert, cert and key.

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{
  "puppetdb": {
    "server_urls": "https://<PUPPETDB_HOST>:8081",
    "cacert": "/etc/puppetlabs/puppet/ssl/certs/ca.pem",
    "cert": "/etc/puppetlabs/puppet/ssl/certs/<WORKSTATION_HOST>.pem",
    "key": "/etc/puppetlabs/puppet/ssl/private_keys/<WORKSTATION_HOST>.pem"
  }
}

On Windows, escape slashes in paths.

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{
  "puppetdb": {
    "server_urls": "https://<PUPPETDB_HOST>:8081",
    "cacert": "C:\\ProgramData\\PuppetLabs\\puppet\\ssl\\certs\\ca.pem",
    "cert": "C:\\ProgramData\\PuppetLabs\\puppet\\ssl\\certs\\<WORKSTATION_HOST>.pem",
    "key": "C:\\ProgramData\\PuppetLabs\\puppet\\ssl\\private_keys\\<WORKSTATION_HOST>.pem"
  }
}

Step 3: Enjoy!

Here are some examples of using the CLI.

Using puppet query

Query PuppetDB using PQL:

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$ puppet query "nodes [ certname ]{ limit 1 }"

Or query PuppetDB using the AST syntax:

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$ puppet query "['from', 'nodes', ['extract', 'certname'], ['limit', 1]]"

For more information on the query command:

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$ man puppet-query

Using puppet db

Handle your PuppetDB exports:

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$ puppet db export pdb-archive.tgz --anonymization full

Or handle your PuppetDB imports:

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$ puppet db import pdb-archive.tgz

For more information on the db command:

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$ man puppet-db

For more information about PuppetDB exports, imports, and anonymization see.