Install PE using the installer tarball

This installer employs default settings to install PE infrastructure components on a single node, creating a standard PE architecture. You can use a standard installation to try out PE with up to 10 nodes, or to manage up to 4,000 nodes. From there, you can scale up to the large or extra-large installation as your infrastructure grows, or customize your configuration as needed.

A standard PE installation consists of the following components installed on a single node:

  • The primary server: The central hub of activity. It is where Puppet code is compiled to create agent catalogs and where SSL certificates are verified and signed.
  • The console: The graphical web user interface. It has configuration and reporting tools.
  • PuppetDB: The data store for data generated throughout your Puppet infrastructure.
The primary server can only run on a *nix machine. However, Windows machines can be Puppet agents, and you can manage them with your *nix primary server. Furthermore, you can operate your *nix primary server remotely from a Windows machine. To do this, before you install PE on your *nix primary server, you must configure an SSH client (such as PuTTY) with the hostname or IP address and port of the *nix machine that you'll use as your primary server. When you open an SSH session to install PE on the *nix primary server, log in as root or use sudo.

To install a FIPS-enabled PE primary server, install the appropriate FIPS-enabled PE tarball (such as puppet-enterprise-2025.3.0-redhatfips-7-x86_64.tar) on a third-party Supported operating system with FIPS mode enabled. The node must be configured with sufficient available entropy for the installation process to succeed.

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