[Pkg-puppet-devel] Bug#798636: Bug#798636: puppet: Plans to switch to puppet 4 (new upstream release)

[Stig Sandbeck Mathisen]

Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog at debian.org> writes:

> what are your plans to switch to puppet 4?

They can be nicely summarized as UNDEF.

> I see that the watch file currently tracks version 3 but upstream
> makes regular releases of version 4.
>
> Should version 4 be packaged separately or do you intend to switch to
> it?

The puppet 3.8 packages contain the puppet 4 parser, so setting
"parser=future" in puppet.conf globally, or per-environment in
environment.conf enables the use of the very nice improvements in the
puppet 4 language.

I think the current puppet packaging could be used to provide a puppet 4
agent.  I've no idea if running a puppet master without using
"puppet-server" in version 4 actually works.  Puppet Labs is providing a
separate daemon for that, which uses many bits from "puppet".

A package rename would be nice, but not necessary. The current package
names reflect how puppet looked and worked at around puppet version 0.24
and before, which feels increasingly out of touch.

Having compatibility with the upstream packages would be a plus.  It
won't be the same package, as Puppet Labs is providing a "all in one"
package, which includes an embedded ruby, and all libraries used.

> I do not know anything about the changes between the two versions but
> I have customers who asked me about the status of puppet 4 in Debian
> and since I think that this will interest more people I opted to open
> a bug to keep track of this discussion.

The puppet server and puppetdb are written in Clojure, runs inside a
JVM, are built with Leiningen and Maven.  There are likely a few
(handfuls of) non-packaged dependencies for both of those.  To package
them, someone with experience with java and java packaging would be
helpful to have on the team.

Puppet Labs have opted to use /etc/puppetlabs/* as root for all related
configuration in puppet 4 and on. I've no idea yet if that makes sense
for Debian.  It would complicate the upgrading process, but greatly
simplify documentation and training.

-- 
Stig Sandbeck Mathisen <ssm at debian.org>