Installing client tools

PE client tools are a set of command line tools that let you access Puppet Enterprise services from a workstation that might or might not be managed by Puppet.

The pe-client-tools package is included in the PE installation tarball. When you install, the client tools are automatically installed on the same node as the primary server. When you upgrade, client tools are automatically updated on infrastructure nodes and managed nodes, but on unmanaged nodes, you must re-install the version of client tools that matches the PE version you upgraded to.

Client tools versions align with PE versions. For example, if you're running PE 2023.0, use the 2023.0 client tools. In some cases, we might issue patch releases ("x.y.z") for PE or the client tools. You don't need to match complete patch numbers between PE and the client tools; only the "x.y" numbers need to match.

To see the version of client tools installed on your system, use the command appropriate for your package manager or operating system. For example, on Red Hat: rpm -q pe-client-tools.

The package includes client tools for these services:

  • Orchestrator — Allow you to control the rollout of changes in your infrastructure, and provides the interface to the orchestration service. Tools include puppet job and puppet task.
  • Puppet access — Authenticates you to the PE RBAC token-based authentication service so that you can use other capabilities and APIs.
  • Code Manager — Provides the interface for the Code Manager and file sync services. Tools include puppet-code.
  • PuppetDB CLI — Enables certain operations with PuppetDB, such as building queries and handling exports.

Because you can safely run these tools remotely, you no longer need to SSH into the primary server to execute commands. Your permissions to see information and to take action are controlled by PE role-based access control. Your activity is logged under your username rather than under root or the pe-puppet user.

Related information