Puppet Professional Certification Resources

Online resources that will help you prepare for taking the Puppet Professional Certification exam.

NOTE: I am not actively using Puppet right now, but I am happy to manage this page. If you have forked this repo and wish to make a pull request for the benefit of other people, please feel free to do so.

Exam Objectives

These are the exam objectives you review and understand in order to pass the test.

Language

Identify Style Guide recommendations

• The Puppet Language Style Guide

Describe language features

• Language: Basics
• Language: Visual Index
• Language: Reserved Words and Acceptable Names
• Language: Resources
• Language: Relationships and Ordering
• Langauge: Resource Defaults
• Language: Variables
• Language: Tags
• Language: Facts and Built-in Variables
• Language: Scope
• Language: Conditional Statements
• Language: Iteration and loops
• Language: Lambdas
• Language: Resource collectors
• Language: Virtual resources
• Language: Expressions
• Language: Functions
• ntp-puppet-4-language-update

Identify the core resource types

• Type Reference

Demonstrate knowledge of classes and defines

• Language: Visual index
• Language: Puppet Language Style Guide
• Language: Classes
• Language: Defined Resource Types

Modules

Describe how to use modules from the Forge

• Installing Modules

Demonstrate knowledge of module structure

• Module Fundamentals
• Documenting Modules

Identify module authoring best practices

• Beginner's Guide to Modules
• Best Practices for Building Puppet Modules

Using Puppet

Describe environments in Puppet

• About Environments
• Configuring Directory Environments
• Enabling Directory Environments in Puppet Enterprise
• Config-file Environments
• Assigning Nodes to Environments
• Environments: Suggestions for Use
• Git Workflow and Puppet Environments
• Environments: Limitations of Environments
• Environments and Puppet's HTTPS Interface

Describe the lifecycle of a Puppet run

• Overview of Puppet's architecture

Describe Puppet ecosystem component usage

• A New Era of Application Services at Puppet Labs
• Subsystems: Agent/Master HTTPS Communications
• Subsystems: Catalog Compilation
• PuppetDB Overview

Describe how to configure a Puppet master

• Configuration: How Puppet is Configured
• Puppet Server: Configuration

Puppet Internals

Describe the purpose of types and providers

• Custom Types
• Provider Development

Describe Puppet’s use of SSL certificates

• Certificates and Security
• Puppet Server: External CA Configuration
• SSL Configuration: External CA Support
• SSL Configuration: Autosigning Certificate Requests

Classification

Describe classification

• Getting Started with Classification
• Puppet: Assigning Configurations to Nodes
• Grouping and Classifying Nodes

Console

Describe Node Manager

• Puppet: Assigning Configurations to Nodes
• Grouping and Classifying Nodes
• Making Changes in the Node Classifier

Describe RBAC

• Role-based Access Control
• Connecting PE to an External Directory Service
• RBAC Permissions
• Creating and Managing Users and User Roles

Describe reporting capabilities in PE Console

• Viewing Reports and Inventory Data

Ecosystem

Describe the purpose of PuppetDB

• PuppetDB Overview

Demonstrate knowledge of Hiera

• Hiera 1: Overview
• Hiera 1: installation
• Configuration and hiera.yaml
• Hierachies
• Lookup Types
• Writing Data Sources
• Interpolation Tokesn, Variables and Lookup Functions
• Usage with Puppet
• Complete Example
• Usage on the Commandline
• Writing New Backends

Describe the usage of MCollective

• Mcollective Collective
• Using Mcollective Command Line Applications

Demonstrate knowledge of Facter

• Facter latest
• Core Facts
• Custom Fact Overview/Reference
• Custom Fact Walkthrough
• External Facts

Describe the purpose of Code Manager

• Managing code with Code Manager

Puppet Courses and Training

Here are courses you can enroll to get up to speed with Puppet.

Official

• Puppet Fundamentals instructor-led training
• Puppet Practitioner instructor-led training

Third Party

• Learning Puppet DevOps Deployment (Puppet Professional Cert)
• Puppet Fundamentals for Systems Administrators