Hiera Puppet

####Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Module Description - What the module does and why it is useful
3. Setup - The basics of getting started with hiera
   • What hiera affects
   • Setup requirements
   • Beginning with hiera
4. Usage - Configuration options and additional functionality
5. Reference - An under-the-hood peek at what the module is doing and how
6. Limitations - OS compatibility, etc.
7. Development - Guide for contributing to the module

Module Description

This module configures Hiera for Puppet.

Setup

What hiera affects

• Hiera yaml file
• Hiera datadir
• hiera-eyaml package
• keys/ directory for eyaml
• /etc/hiera.yaml for symlink

Setup requirements

If you are using Puppet Enterprise and the eyaml backend, you will need the puppetlabs-pe_gem module to install the eyaml gem using PE's gem command. If you are using a PE version with puppetserver (3.7 and later) you will also need the puppetlabs-pe_puppetserver_gem module.

Otherwise you just need puppet.

Beginning with hiera

Declaring the class with a given hierarchy is a pretty good starting point:

This class will write out a hiera.yaml file in either /etc/puppetlabs/puppet/hiera.yaml or /etc/puppet/hiera.yaml (depending on if the node is running Puppet Enterprise or not).

class { 'hiera':
  hierarchy => [
    '%{environment}/%{calling_class}',
    '%{environment}',
    'common',
  ],
}

The resulting output in /etc/puppet/hiera.yaml:

---
:backends: 
  - yaml
:logger: console
:hierarchy:
  - "%{environment}/%{calling_class}"
  - "%{environment}"
  - common

:yaml:
   :datadir: /etc/puppet/hieradata

Usage

Reference

This module will also allow you to configure different options for logger and merge_behaviour. The default behaviour is to set logger to console and merge behaviour to native.

For details and valid options see Configuring Hiera.

Note: For merge_behavior if you set deep or deeper you need to ensure the deep_merge Ruby gem is installed.

class { 'hiera':
  hierarchy => [
    '%{environment}/%{calling_class}',
    '%{environment}',
    'common',
  ],
  logger    => 'console',
  merge_behavior => 'deep'
}

The resulting output in /etc/puppet/hiera.yaml:

---
:backends:
  - yaml
:logger: console
:hierarchy:
  - "%{environment}/%{calling_class}"
  - "%{environment}"
  - common

:yaml:
   :datadir: /etc/puppet/hieradata
:merge_behavior: deep

Classes

Public Classes

• hiera: Main class to configure hiera

Private Classes

• hiera::params: Handles variable conditionals
• hiera::eyaml: Handles eyaml configuration

Parameters

The following parameters are available for the hiera class:

• hierarchy
  The hiera hierarchy.
  Default: []
• backends
  The list of backends.
  Default: ['yaml']
• hiera_yaml
  The path to the hiera config file.
  Default:
  • '/etc/puppet/hiera.yaml' for Puppet Open Source
  • '/etc/puppetlabs/puppet/hiera.yaml' for Puppet Enterprise
• create_symlink Whether to create the symlink /etc/hiera.yaml Default: true
• datadir
  The path to the directory where hiera will look for databases.
  Default:
  • '/etc/puppet/hieradata' for Puppet Open Source
  • '/etc/puppetlabs/puppet/hieradata' for Puppet Enterprise
• datadir_manage
  Whether to create and manage the datadir as a file resource.
  Default: true
• owner
  The owner of managed files and directories.
  Default:
  • 'puppet' for Puppet Open Source
  • 'pe-puppet' for Puppet Enterprise
• group
  The group owner of managed files and directories.
  Default:
  • 'puppet' for Puppet Open Source
  • 'pe-puppet' for Puppet Enterprise
• eyaml
  Whether to install, configure, and enable the eyaml backend.
  Default: false
• eyaml_datadir
  The path to the directory where hiera will look for databases with the eyaml backend.
  Default: same as datadir
• eyaml_extension
  The file extension for the eyaml backend.
  Default: undef, backend defaults to '.eyaml'
• eyaml_version
  The version of hiera-eyaml to install. Accepts 'installed', 'latest', '2.0.7', etc
  Default: undef
• confdir
  The path to Puppet's confdir.
  Default:
  • '/etc/puppet' for Puppet Open Source
  • '/etc/puppetlabs/puppet' for Puppet Enterprise
• logger
  Which hiera logger to use.
  Note: You need to manage any package/gem dependencies yourself.
  Default: undef, hiera defaults to 'console'
• cmdpath
  Search paths for command binaries, like the eyaml command.
  The default should cover most cases.
  Default: ['/opt/puppet/bin', '/usr/bin', '/usr/local/bin']
• create_keys
  Whether to create pkcs7 keys and manage key files for hiera-eyaml.
  This is useful if you need to distribute a pkcs7 key pair.
  Default: true
• gem_source
  An alternate gem source for installing hiera-eyaml.
  Default: undef, uses gem backend default
• merge_behavior
  Which hiera merge behavior to use.
  Note: You need to manage any package/gem dependencies yourself.
  Default: undef, hiera defaults to 'native'
• extra_config
  Arbitrary YAML content to append to the end of the hiera.yaml config file.
  This is useful for configuring backend-specific parameters.
  Default: ''

Limitations

The pe-puppetserver service must be restarted after hiera-eyaml is installed; this module will not do it for you. The eyaml_version parameter does not currently modify the eyaml version of the command-line gem on pe-puppetserver.

Development

Pull requests on github! If someone wrote spec tests, that would be awesome.