[Pkg-puppet-devel] Notes from the Puppet BoF @ DebConf18

Sat Aug 4 15:25:34 BST 2018

As a result of the discussions during the BoF, zigo created the
#debian-puppet @ OFTC IRC channel for us to chat.

Please join!

-- 
      ,''`.
     : :'  :     Louis-Philippe Véronneau
     `. `'`      pollo at debian.org / veronneau.org
       `-

On 2018-08-04 13:30, Apollon Oikonomopoulos wrote:
> [ CC'ing everyone I think is not a member of p-p-d ]
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> This is a summary of what was said in the ad-hoc Puppet BoF we held 
> yesterday at DebConf18 (with minor edits/corrections).
> 
> The BoF's aim was to bring together people using Puppet on Debian 
> systems with members of the Puppet maintainers team and discuss the 
> current status and the future of Puppet packages.
> 
> Current status
> --------------
> 
> As of today, the latest stable upstream releases (puppet 5.5.3, facter 
> 3.11) are available in sid/buster (but not stretch-backports). We still 
> use the "old" Ruby master code via rack, together with a rack middleware 
> that offers 3.x agent compatibility. Note that upstream has moved away 
> from Ruby puppet-masters since 4.x in favor of Puppet Server, but the 
> Ruby puppet-master has been working fine for a bunch of us.
> 
> PuppetDB 4.4 has been in unstable since DebConf17, but never migrated to
> testing for reasons detailed below.
> 
> Puppet Server has not been packaged yet and there are no concrete plans 
> to do so in the near future, although it should not be too hard after 
> PuppetDB has migrated to testing. The only real question is the 
> availability and support of the required JRuby versions in Debian.
> 
> PuppetDB packaging
> ------------------
> 
> PuppetDB was packaged mostly during last year's DebCamp, in a sprint 
> that resulted in ~70 new packages. The package is known to work (or at 
> least have worked), but never migrated to testing, at least due to the 
> following RC bugs:
> 
>   - https://bugs.debian.org/878193
>   - https://bugs.debian.org/884186
>   - https://bugs.debian.org/825501
>   - https://bugs.debian.org/850798
>   - https://bugs.debian.org/875365
>   - https://bugs.debian.org/880320
>   - https://bugs.debian.org/880351
>   - https://bugs.debian.org/889125
>   - https://bugs.debian.org/896991
> 
> Also, most of the Clojure dependencies have been packaged prior to the 
> inclusion of leiningen in the archive and should be converted to use 
> leiningen for building. To that end, we need to coordinate with the 
> Clojure and Java teams, primarily to integrate leiningen with dh.
> 
> Towards the freeze
> ------------------
> 
> The Puppet 6 timeline is not concrete yet. According to [1], release is 
> expected this fall, which should give us enough time before freeze. No 
> major DSL changes are expected; however, upstream says that they will 
> try to split built-in puppet types (e.g. like Nagios) into separate 
> modules. So far the following types seem to have been removed from 
> master and split out to standalone modules:
> 
>   - mount (https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-mount_core)
>   - zfs (https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-zfs_core)
>   - selinux (https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-selinux_core)
>   - augeas (https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-augeas_core)
>   - nagios (https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-nagios_core)
>   - sshkeys (https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-sshkeys_core)
>   - cron (https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-cron_core)
>   - host (https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-host_core)
> 
> According to [1], these modules will be included in puppet-agent at 
> packaging time; it remains to be seen if this includes the official 
> tarballs as well, and if not, whether we'll bundle them in the puppet 
> package or use individual packages.
> 
> Finally, extrapolating from [1], Puppet 5.x should have a good couple of 
> years until EOL, so it could still be chosen for Buster, in case Puppet 
> 6 turns out to be impossible.
> 
> [1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/puppet-dev/uNoCQu6rcFU
> 
> As far as Puppet Server is concerned, it is not required to run a puppet 
> master. Upstream says the Ruby master code is deprecated and supports 
> only Puppet Server, but for the time being the rack master code works 
> fine.  Future development might lead to features being available only on 
> Puppet Server, so we should keep an eye open. However, for the time 
> being, our energy should really be spent on PuppetDB.
> 
> While PuppetDB is not a strict requirement, it is still necessary for 
> using exported resources, and also acts as a convenient centralized 
> information store, which makes it an essential part of every non-trivial 
> deployment. Thus we should try to have PuppetDB in buster if possible.
>  
> Short-term actions
> ------------------
> 
> A number of people offered to help with some of the tasks outlined 
> above:
> 
> olasd, along with georg, will handle puppet and facter backports to 
> stretch.
> 
> rbalint offered to reduce the delta with Ubuntu.
> 
> olasd and myself will take a look at PuppetDBs clojure dependencies and 
> the RC bugs currently blocking puppetdb.
> 
> zigo offered to set up #debian-puppet on OFTC
> 
> We also got offers from pollo and intrigeri for early testing of new 
> Puppet packages.
> 
> Finally, I'll update the wiki page [2] both for end-users and packagers.
> 
> [2] https://wiki.debian.org/Puppet
> 
> If anybody reading these lines would like to help with any of the issues 
> above, suggest something else, or just comment, please feel free to 
> reply to this e-mail.
> 
> /A
> 

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