Using Puppet to manage Linux and Mac platforms in an enterprise environment

With Nigel Kersten

Puppet is a truly open source systems management package written in Ruby that allows you to manage the state of resources such as users, groups, package installation and service configuration rather than just files.  Similar management solutions have been used in server environments for a while, but they are just as useful for client deployments, particularly if you have a need to enforce policy in a flexible manner.  This talk will introduce you to the features of Puppet and discuss the advantages this sort of approach has over pure file management solutions, particularly when it comes to cross-platform management needs.  We will cover Puppet syntax, some of the most common types, and discuss some of the lessons Google has learned so far in the course of a rather large deployment.

Nigel Kersten is the Technical Lead for Macintosh Operations at Google, working in a team to manage Puppet installations across Mac and Linux platforms for Google's corporate environment.  Prior to this he spent the best part of a decade working in higher education in Australia, supporting users who were both artists and academics.

This page last updated: Wednesday, July 30, 2008