Using example commands

These guidelines can help you understand and customize the example commands you'll find in the Puppet Enterprise (PE) docs.

Ports, paths, and other input

Some examples in the PE docs use puppet commands to populate variables and curl arguments. This can take the guesswork out of providing those values. In the following example, the puppet config print server command supplies the DNS name for a curl command:

url="http://$(puppet config print server):4433"
curl "$url"

In these examples, puppet commands generate cert paths:

--cert $(puppet config print --section main hostcert) \
--key $(puppet config print --section main hostprivkey) \
--cacert $(puppet config print --section main localcacert) \

puppet commands can return different values depending on various conditions. Make sure you run the entire example (including commands setting environment variables and the curl command) as the root, administrator, or with equivalent elevated privileges.

To run such commands on a machine without elevated privileges, you must replace the puppet commands with hard-coded values. If you’re unsure about the correct values, run the puppet commands to get reasonable default values.

If an example command uses a service's default port, and you changed the service's port, you must change the port number accordingly in the command.

Authentication tokens in curl commands

If a curl command requires token-based authentication, the example might contain this line:

auth_header="X-Authentication: $(puppet-access show)"

If you have an actual authentication token available, you can use that in the command instead, such as:

auth_header="X-Authentication: <TOKEN>"

For instructions on generating, configuring, revoking, and deleting authentication tokens in PE, go to Token-based authentication.

Modifications for Windows

While the commands in the PE docs are primarily *nix-based, Windows-specific commands are provided in topics focusing exclusively on Windows systems.

With the exception of Windows-specific commands, code samples use backslashes (\) as line-continuation characters. In Windows, the equivalent characters are carets (^) and, for PowerShell specifically, backticks (`).

Additionally, *nix commands use forward slashes (/) as directory separator characters. You might use either backslashes or forward slashes as directory separator characters in your Windows commands; however some modules and commands require you to use one or the other. For modules, check the module's Forge page for information about Windows modifications or requirements.

Furthermore, Windows commands might require wrapping strings or arguments in double quotes rather than single quotes.

There are various options for running curl commands directly in Windows, such as:

  • Installing the curl executable for Windows.
  • Using built-in curl functionality included with Git for Windows.
  • Using the GNU Bash shell.

If you're using PowerShell, you can use these equivalent commands to modify *nix curl commands for use in Windows:

Native curl PowerShell equivalent
curl Invoke-WebRequest
-k or --insecure [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = $true
-H -Headers
-X -Method
-d -Body
\ (as a line-continuation character) `

You can learn more about Invoke-WebRequest and the arguments it accepts in the Microsoft PowerShell documentation. You can also learn about running Puppet language commands on Windows in the Puppet documentation.

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