Puppet Interview Questions

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Puppet is one of the most sought-after configuration management tools as it facilitates infrastructure provisioning through automation. The average salary of a Puppet developer in India ranges from ₹6 to ₹25 lakhs based on experience. With over 2000+ job openings, now is a great time to acquire Puppet skills. Proficiency in core concepts like Manifests, Hiera, and ENC will ensure that you stand tall among others. Below we have given all the important questions to crack your Puppet Interview.

• Basic Puppet Interview Questions
• Advanced Puppet Interview Questions

1. What is Puppet?

First let us compare Puppet with Ansible:

The Puppet is a configuration management tool that is extensively used for automating the administration tasks. Puppet tool helps you deploy, manage and configure your servers.

2. What is Manifests?

The Manifests are just files in Puppet wherein the client configuration is specified.

3. What is the difference between a Module and a Manifest?

The manifests that we define in modules can be included in the manifests. This makes it easier to manage the manifests. It is possible to push the chosen manifest on to the specific agent or node.

4. What is Facter?

The Facter is a system profiling library which is used to gather system information during a Puppet run. The Facter offers your information regarding the IP address, version of kernel, CPU and others.

5. What is Puppet Kick?

Puppet Kick lets you trigger the Puppet Agent from Puppet Master. During the run interval the Puppet Agent will send a request to Puppet Master.

6. Explain Puppet architecture.

Puppet uses a Master-Slave setup. The Slave needs to ask the Master to connect securely. The Master sends its certificate and asks for one from the Slave. The Slave sends its certificate back and requests data. The Master gets the request and sends configuration settings to the Slave.

7. What do you know about the Puppet module?

Puppet modules are collections of data such as files, templates, and facts. Puppet code can be arranged into several manifests using modules, which are perfect for this purpose.

8. What do you know about the Puppet Catalog?

The Puppet Catalog is a document used by Puppet Agent to configure a node. The agent retrieves the catalog from the Puppet Master. The catalog specifies the desired condition of each resource that has to be managed.

The catalog may also include information on resource dependencies to manage them effectively. You can specify the sources of configuration information utilized to compile a catalog. Configuration information comes from three sources: puppet manifests, data provided by the agent, and external data.

9. Can you explain a class in Puppet?

A class in Puppet is like a box that holds configuration code. You have to say you want to use it, and then you can put it into your Puppet instructions. Classes help keep your code organized and make it easier to set up big parts of your system.

10. How do Puppet Agent nodes communicate with Puppet Masters and vice-versa?

The interaction between Puppet agent nodes and Puppet Masters relies on HTTPS with client verification. The Puppet Master features an HTTP interface with endpoints. Agents send an HTTPS request to these endpoints to request or submit anything to the master. In this context, client verification refers to the requirement for an SSL certificate. SSL certificates assist in confirming the identity of the party. Additionally, Puppet includes a built-in certificate authority for certificate management.

11. is it possible to manage Workstations with Puppet?

You can use the Puppet tool for managing machines which are laptops, desktops, and even workstations.

12. Does Puppet run on Windows?

Beginning with Puppet 2.7.6 it is possible to run on Windows and this ensures future compatibility.

13. What is Puppet Labs?

Puppet Labs is the company that is interested in solving the Puppet automation problem.

14. How to upgrade Puppet and Facter?

You can upgrade Puppet and Facter through your operating system package management system. You can do this either through the vendor’s repository or through the Puppet Labs’ public repositories.

15. How are the variables like $ operating system set?

You can set the variables by Facter. It is possible to get the complete list of variables and the values if you run the facter in a shell by itself.

16. Why must Puppet be considered for an organization’s cloud and servers?

The Puppet tool is a consideration for organizations in the cloud and server space. It serves as a solution that enables infrastructure to be defined as code offering dynamic management of a large number of servers. Puppet is widely recognized as one of the DevOps programs empowering users to enforce system configurations. This deployment tool is compatible with platforms, including Windows, Linux, and others, allowing control over multiple application servers. Its extensive industry support within the DevOps and cloud environments guarantees compatibility with all types of servers available today.

17. What are some of the Puppet use cases?

The Puppet tool plays a role in DevOps due to its versatility in scenarios. It enables the assignment of configurations to each host, ensuring that the necessary settings are in place through monitoring. By using Puppet, it becomes easier and more cost-effective to make changes across systems. Additionally, this deployment tool provides an understanding of the change control process. Facilitates seamless software package upgrades throughout the entire organization.

18. How is the Puppet tool trending currently?

The Puppet tool is receiving attention in today’s age for various reasons. Many developers contribute to the development and improvement of this management tool, which has garnered a user base. The popularity of Puppet stems from its adoption by 30,000 organizations and numerous universities that regularly utilize this deployment tool.

Since its inception, Puppet has proven to be commercially viable. It can be deployed on platforms hosting Ruby, such as Microsoft Windows Server and Oracle Enterprise Linux. Furthermore, it supports deployment models, including public and hybrid clouds.

19. Which command helps in checking certificate requests to the Puppet Master from Puppet Slave?

To view the list of certificate signing requests sent from the Puppet Agent to the Puppet Master, you can use the command “puppet cert list.” Make sure to run this command on the Puppet Master. Additionally, if you want to sign a certificate, you can use the command “puppet cert sign <Hostname of agent>.” To sign all certificates at once, you can use the command “puppet cert sign all,” which is ideal for bulk signing.

20. What are the “etckeeper-commit-post” and “etckeeper-commit-pre” commands?

The “etckeeper commit post” is a file that allows you to define and run scripts and commands. It runs after the Master has pushed the configuration to the slave or agent. Similarly, “etckeeper commit pre” is another file where you can define scripts and commands that will be executed before the Master pushes the configuration to the Agent.

21. What is MCollective?

The MCollective is a tool that is developed by the Puppet labs for server orchestration. MCollective helps to run thousands of jobs in parallel using your own or existing plugins.

22. What type of organizations can use Puppet?

There is no strict rule about the type of organizations that can benefit from Puppet. But an organization with only a few servers is less likely to benefit from Puppet. An organization with huge number of servers can benefit from Puppet as this eliminates the need to manually manage the servers.

23. Can Puppet run on servers that are unique?

Puppet can run on servers that are unique. Even though there might be very less chances of servers being unique since within an organization there are a lot of similarities that exist like the operating system that they are running on, and so on.

24. What are the characters permitted in a class and module name?

The characters that are permitted in a class and module name can be lowercase letters, underscores, numbers. It should being with a lowercase letter, you can use “::” as a namespace separator. The variable names can be including alphanumeric characters and underscore and can be case sensitive.

25. What are the open-source or community tools for making Puppet more powerful?

Jira is widely used as a tool for managing and tracking changes and requests, making internal processes more streamlined. When it comes to managing Puppet code, the Git and Puppet Code Manager app is highly recommended as it aligns with practices. Additionally, incorporating the breaker testing framework into the Jenkins continuous integration pipeline can be beneficial for running all Puppet modifications.

26. What is the difference between a Manifest and a Module?

In Puppet, a Manifest is a file that holds Puppet DSL code. It’s a.pp file with commands written in the Puppet DSL language, which defines the desired state configurations. A manifest can be specific to a node. It can be organized into a catalog. Manifests are applicable to both Puppet Agent servers and local servers.

Modules serve as structures used for creating “scripts.” Typically, modules include manifests. They may also consist of templates, files, test cases, and metadata. It is possible to create a module even if it doesn’t contain a manifest.

27. What do you know about MCollective?

MCollective, also referred to as the Marionette Collective, is a framework utilized for building job execution systems and server orchestration. It allows users to programmatically perform tasks on a group of servers. Developed by Puppet Labs, MCollective enables the execution of thousands of jobs simultaneously by leveraging existing plugins. It achieves interaction with hosts through the use of publish/subscribe middleware.

28. Why does the Puppet tool have its own language? Why are YAML and XML considered incompatible?

The language utilized for manifests is essentially Puppets way of communicating with humans. While YAML and XML are data formats designed to work with computer systems, they are not interfaces for human interaction. Although some individuals may have the ability to read and write them, there is no guarantee that these interfaces will be consistently declarative. Different processes may interpret a YAML or XML configuration in varying ways.

29. If the servers are all unique, can Puppet be helpful?

The Puppet tool can be beneficial when dealing with servers that have certain characteristics. While each server may have its features, they are not entirely one of a kind. For example, although the IP addresses or hostnames might vary, servers typically operate on an Operating System (OS).

In situations where a server does possess qualities, Puppet can still prove valuable. It aids in maintaining both uniqueness and consistency. By using Puppet you can define the expected level of consistency. Make arrangements to handle the server’s individuality.

Puppet Salary Trends

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Puppet Engineer Job Trends

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics US, the employment of DevOps Engineers using Puppet is projected to grow by 21%.

• Global Demand: With more than 7,000 open jobs on LinkedIn in the United States and more than 1,000 open jobs on LinkedIn in India, the demand for Puppet Engineers is increasing.
• Growth Projections: The growth suggested by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of 21% in the field of Puppet Engineering, might surpass all other occupations growth by 8%.

Job Opportunities in Puppet Engineering

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Roles and responsibilities of Puppet Engineer

According to the job posted on Naukri.com by Benovymed Healthcare,

Role: Founding Member / Senior DevOps Engineer – Puppet

Responsibilities

• Understanding customer requirements and project KPIs
• Implementing various development, testing, automation tools, and IT infrastructure.
• Selecting and deploying appropriate CI/CD tools.
• Encouraging and building automated processes wherever possible.

Skill Required:

• Experience with Linux-based infrastructure.
• Knowledge of one cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• Good hands-on knowledge of configuration management and deployment tools, like Puppet, Chef, Terraform, etc.
• Experience in developing continuous integration / continuous delivery pipelines

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We hope this set of Puppet interview questions will help you prepare for your interviews. Best of luck!

If you want to start your career or even elevate your skills in the field of Puppet, you can enroll in our DevOps Certification Course and get certified today.

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