Notes from the field

example42's blog

Puppet, DevOps, infrastructure automation, and the operational details that matter.

All the posts so far

2026-07-10 - Puppet 7 to Puppet 8 Migration Guide
2026-06-11 - First Steps in the Swamp
2026-05-22 - Reading the Swamp
2026-05-20 - Hands in the Swamp
2026-04-14 - Pabawi Version One released
2026-03-14 - Silent is not idle
2026-01-16 - Announcing Pabawi, a web frontend for classic infrastructures
2024-01-19 - Emerging from a year long apnoea
2022-12-13 - Desktop as Code with TP Desktop
2022-11-06 - Puppet consulting, the example42 way
2022-08-07 - Puppet Evaluation Error. Error while evaluating a Resource Statement - Unknown resource type
2022-06-22 - HashiConf Europe 2022 - Vibes from a perfect conference
2022-05-23 - Psick module version 1 coming soon!
2022-04-13 - Puppet is acquired and example42 goes back to the roots
2021-12-20 - example42 GmbH closes business on 31st of December 2021
2021-02-11 - Puppet Tip 119 - Hiera merge behavior
2021-01-12 - From 2020 to 2021
2020-11-13 - Puppetize Digital - example42 talk about GIT workflows
2020-11-09 - All our good reasons to sponsor Puppetize Digital
2020-11-02 - 5 years of example42
2020-06-12 - Puppet Tip 118 - Using EYAML-GPG to store secrets in Hiera
2020-05-21 - Puppet Tip 117 - Managing extra repositories with Tiny Puppet
2020-05-05 - Puppet Tip 116 - Puppet Control-Repo Workflow
2020-04-20 - Puppet Tip 115 - Five Years of Tiny Puppet
2020-02-12 - Puppet Tip 114 - Managing Puppet Enterprise - Part 2 - Log Files
2020-02-05 - Puppet Tip 113 - Managing Puppet Enterprise - Part 1 - Services
2020-01-21 - Puppet Tip 112 - Hiera nested lookups
2019-12-24 - Puppet Tip 111 - HDM released!
2019-12-19 - Puppet Tip 110 - Request for Tiny Data - Part 4 - Defaults and final call
2019-12-16 - Puppet Tip 109 - Request for Tiny Data - Part 3 - Tiny, fancy and powerful features
2019-12-12 - Puppet Tip 108 - Request for Tiny Data - Part 2 - Tiny data exposed
2019-12-09 - Puppet Tip 107 - Request for Tiny Data - Part 1 - Tiny Puppet (tp)
2019-04-04 - Puppet Tip 106 - Sensitive Data in Puppet
2019-02-18 - example42 is rewarded twice at 2018 Puppet Channel Partner Awards
2019-01-07 - Puppet Tip 105 - The lazy tagging issue and how to work around
2018-12-31 - Tip of the Week 104 - Categorised summary of example42 2018 blog postings
2018-12-17 - Tip of the Week 103 - Psick profiles. Part 5 - Managing /etc/hosts and DNS
2018-12-10 - Tip of the Week 102 - Psick profiles. Part 4 - Managing users
2018-12-03 - Tip of the Week 101 - Psick profiles. Part 3 - Managing OpenSSH
2018-11-26 - Tip of the Week 100 - Puppet Community Award
2018-11-19 - Tip of the Week 99 - Psick profiles. Part 2 - Setting proxy server and hostname
2018-11-12 - Tip of the Week 98 - Psick profiles. Part 1 - Overview
2018-11-05 - Tip of the Week 97 - example42 is rewarded as one of the Top 10 DevOps consulting companies in Europe
2018-10-29 - Tip of the Week 96 - Editorconfig
2018-10-22 - Tip of the Week 95 - Roles and profiles - explained
2018-10-15 - Tip of the Week 94 - Custom applications management using Tiny Puppet
2018-10-08 - Tip of the Week 93 - Upgrading to Puppet 6 CA
2018-10-01 - Tip of the Week 92 - What's new with Puppet 6
2018-09-24 - Tip of the Week 91 - The FIVE things you need to know when starting with Puppet
2018-09-17 - Tip of the Week 90 - Update of official Puppet Training courses
2018-09-10 - Tip of the Week 89 - tp install anything (anywhere), and configure
2018-09-03 - Tip of the Week 88 - Managing packages on MacOSX with Puppet and Home Brew
2018-08-27 - Tip of the Week 87 - Puppet Library Module synchronization
2018-08-20 - Tip of the Week 86 - Puppet node classification
2018-08-14 - Tip of the Week 85 - The downside of server naming conventions
2018-08-07 - Tip of the Week 84 - Configuration Management and Containers
2018-07-30 - Tip of the Week 83 - Introduction to Razor
2018-07-23 - Tip of the Week 82 - A few steps to Tiny Puppet on the command line
2018-07-16 - Tip of the Week 81 - Facter fork bombs and timeouts - what are they, how to prevent them
2018-07-09 - Tip of the Week 80 - Update on example42 Puppet modules
2018-07-02 - Tip of the Week 79 - How to adopt the Puppet Developer Kit (PDK) to your code
2018-06-25 - Tip of the Week 78 - What you need to know about Puppet facts. Part 5 - facter.conf
2018-06-18 - Tip of the Week 77 - What you need to know about Puppet facts. Part 4 - Trusted facts
2018-06-11 - Tip of the Week 76 - What you need to know about Puppet facts. Part 3 - External facts
2018-06-04 - Tip of the Week 75 - What you need to know about Puppet facts. Part 2 - Custom facts
2018-05-28 - Tip of the Week 74 - What you need to know about Puppet facts. Part 1 - Core facts
2018-05-21 - Tip of the Week 73 - Migrate from Hiera v3 to Hiera v5
2018-05-14 - Tip of the Week 72 - Puppet [custom] data types
2018-05-07 - Tip of the Week 71 - Testing Puppet Enterprise 2018.1
2018-04-30 - Tip of the Week 70 - example42 Puppet Tutorial - Part 4
2018-04-23 - Tip of the Week 69 - example42 Puppet Tutorial - Part 3
2018-04-16 - Tip of the Week 68 - example42 Puppet Tutorial - Part 2
2018-04-09 - Tip of the Week 67 - example42 Puppet Tutorial - Part 1
2018-04-02 - Tip of the Week 66 - Example42 Puppet modules status update
2018-03-26 - Tip of the Week 65 - The example42 Puppet cheat sheet
2018-03-19 - Tip of the Week 64 - A wholistic DevOps approach
2018-03-12 - Tip of the Week 63 - Puppet Control Repo change impact scenarios
2018-03-05 - Tip of the Week 62 - Using catalog diff to check refactoring
2018-02-26 - Tip of the Week 61 - DevOps and the permanent learning pattern
2018-02-19 - Tip of the Week 60 - Anatomy of a Puppet control-repo compared to PSICK
2018-02-12 - Tip of the Week 59 - How to use psick module for common profiles.
2018-02-05 - Tip of the Week 58 - News from FOSDEM and Configuration Management Camp
2018-01-29 - Tip of the Week 57 - All the ways to remotely trigger Puppet runs (with or without Puppet tasks)
2018-01-22 - Tip of the Week 56 - Running acceptance tests on different Puppet versions with PSICK
2018-01-15 - Tip of the Week 55 - Classification and First Run mode with PSICK
2018-01-08 - Tip of the Week 54 - Einladung DevOps und Automatisierung Workshop
2018-01-01 - Tip of the Week 53 - Categorized summary of example42 2017 blog postings
2017-12-27 - Tip of the Week 52 - Puppet noop, no-noop and the path to safe Puppet deployments
2017-12-18 - Tip of the Week 51 - Acceptance testing on a control-repository using beaker with vagrant and docker
2017-12-11 - Tip of the Week 50 - Scheduling Puppet resources application
2017-12-04 - Tip of the Week 49 - LibRAL and a proposal for the new Puppet Resource API
2017-11-27 - Tip of the Week 48 - Puppet modules documentation
2017-11-20 - Tip of the Week 47 - HowTo DevOps
2017-11-13 - Tip of the Week 46 - Checking config files before applying them
2017-11-06 - Tip of the Week 45 - Save the dates
2017-10-30 - Tip of the Week 44 - Puppet Code Development IDE
2017-10-23 - Tip of the Week 43 - Bolt and tasks with PSICK
2017-10-16 - Tip of the Week 42 - Puppet plans and tasks
2017-10-08 - Tip of the Week 41 - Introducing PSICK - The Infrastructure Puppet module
2017-10-02 - Tip of the Week 40 - Tenant modules
2017-09-25 - Tip of the Week 39 - Secure data management with multiple eyaml keys
2017-09-18 - Tip of the Week 38 - When to place data in hiera
2017-09-11 - Tip of the Week 37 - Automated, reusable hiera eyaml setup
2017-09-04 - Tip of the Week 36 - Testing any role on any OS with a PSICK control repo
2017-08-28 - Tip of the Week 35 - GIT workflow for Puppet control-repositories
2017-08-21 - Tip of the Week 34 - Encrypt your secrets with Hiera eyaml
2017-08-14 - Tip of the Week 33 - Testing a control-repo with Vagrant
2017-08-07 - Tip of the Week 32 - Puppet class indirection via Hiera
2017-07-31 - Tip of the Week 31 - Request for Feedback - sort_merged_arrays fix and problems with older Puppet versions
2017-07-24 - Tip of the Week 30 - Spec Testing a Puppet control-repository
2017-07-17 - Tip of the Week 29 - PSICK explained
2017-07-10 - Tip of the Week 28 - Puppet and Fabric
2017-07-03 - Tip of the Week 27 - Puppet node classification options
2017-06-26 - Tip of the Week 26 - The PSICK Developer Environment Setup
2017-06-19 - Tip of the Week 25 - Control Repo documentation
2017-06-12 - Tip of the Week 24 - Puppet 5
2017-06-05 - Tip of the Week 23 - Puppet reports and metrics
2017-05-29 - Tip of the Week 22 - Hiera 5 globs and mapped paths
2017-05-22 - Tip of the Week 21 - Automated Puppet infrastructure setup
2017-05-15 - Tip of the Week 20 - Self contained nodes classifications
2017-05-08 - Tip of the Week 19 - A PSICK Vagrant experience
2017-05-01 - Tip of the Week 18 - Puppet debugger
2017-04-24 - Tip of the Week 17 - Technical Puppet Workshop, May 17th, Frankfurt
2017-04-17 - Tip of the Week 16 - Hiera 5
2017-04-10 - Tip of the Week 15 - Environment enforcement
2017-04-03 - Tip of the Week 14 - Puppet Continuous Integration with GitLab
2017-03-27 - Tip of the Week 13 - Environment caches
2017-03-20 - Tip of the Week 12 - Roles, profiles and tools
2017-03-13 - Tip of the Week 11 - Using a second mount point for files
2017-03-06 - Tip of the Week 10 - Server side noop mode
2017-02-27 - Tip of the Week 9 - Building your own Puppet 4 Data Types
2017-02-20 - Tip of the Week 8 - Using Puppet Resource References the right way
2017-02-13 - Tip of the Week 7 - Using Exec resource the right way
2017-02-06 - Tip of the Week 6 - Resources from Hash Data in Puppet 4
2017-01-30 - Tip of the Week 5 - RSpec Testing on existing Puppet code
2017-01-23 - Tip of the Week 4 - Existing code and Puppet 4
2017-01-16 - Tip of the Week 3 - The optimal hiera.yaml
2017-01-09 - Tip of the Week 2 - Anatomy of a Puppet control-repo
2017-01-01 - Tip of the Week 1 - One-liner to install Puppet 4
2016-05-30 - Exploring Puppet(4) modules design patterns
2016-05-11 - A modern Puppet 4 control repo
2016-04-13 - The 4th generation of example42 Puppet modules
2015-12-20 - Puppet 4 - Examples - EPP Templates
2015-11-24 - example42 @ #cfgmgmtcamp
2015-11-18 - Tiny Puppet 1.0
2015-10-30 - First steps for the Puppet Guide - 42 slides for Puppet beginners
2015-10-26 - Preparing for Tiny Puppet 1.0
2015-10-15 - Born at the PuppetConf
2015-10-07 - Puppet 4 - Examples - Functions
2015-09-09 - Puppet 4 - Examples - Data Types
2015-08-11 - example42 - Module Status update
2015-06-25 - example42 @ PuppetConf 2015
2015-01-02 - Introducing Tiny Puppet
2014-10-29 - Reusability features every module should have
2014-10-13 - Example42 goes Org
2014-06-30 - Extending Puppet
2014-06-22 - Rethinking modules - Part 2
2014-05-31 - Rethinking modules - Part 1
2014-05-12 - From Drupal to Jekyll
2013-09-27 - Talking about evolution
2013-08-31 - NextGen Modules Lessons Learned
2013-06-15 - The handy Grail of modules standards
2012-12-21 - Example42 Puppet Playground
2012-12-08 - Introducing Example42 Puppet tutorials
2012-09-30 - Presentation Puppet Conf 2012 - Puppet modules for fun and profit
2012-07-11 - A presentation about Example42 NextGen modules
2012-04-10 - NextGen modules documentation and examples
2012-03-02 - Testing Puppet runs with Puppi
2012-01-03 - The Next Generation of Example42 Puppet modules
2011-07-27 - Deploying applications and bringing Puppet information to the cli with Puppi
2011-05-24 - Puppi presentation at Puppet Camp Europe 2011
2011-02-28 - Test driven Puppet infrastructure deployment
2011-02-23 - Puppi a Puppet module for deployment automation
2011-02-15 - Understanding Example42 modules
2011-01-02 - How to setup a Puppet Master with example42 modules