Difference between Puppet, Puppet Master and Puppet Server

2
votes

We are in transition from Puppet 3.8 to Puppet 5.4. I am currently playing with puppet 5.4. Though the puppet documentation is good I don't understand what is the difference between puppet, puppetserver and puppetmaster.

1
puppet
It's unclear to me what you're asking, in part because "puppetmaster" isn't these days a Puppet thing. There is a functional role "Puppet master" and a command "puppet master", but there is no "puppetmaster". Perhaps a citation to some particular documentation would help clarify. - John Bollinger

1 Answers

3
votes

The following definitions may help:

  • Puppet: Refers to the product Puppet, the language Puppet, the entire Puppet ecosystem and also the name of the company that wrote the software.

  • Puppet Master: A Puppet Master is an installation of Puppet where Puppet code is compiled, and also where SSL certs are verified and signed. Also known as a "Compile Master". In a "monolithic" Puppet Master installation in Puppet Enterprise, the Puppet Master also runs the Puppet Console and PuppetDB. In a "split" installation, the Master, Console and PuppetDB functionality run on different nodes.

  • Puppet Server: The Puppet Server is an application that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on the Puppet Master. In addition to hosting endpoints for the certificate authority service, it also powers the catalog compiler, which compiles configuration catalogs for agent nodes, using Puppet code and various other data sources.

If you like, the "Puppet Server" is the implementation of a Puppet Master, which is more like an abstract role.

See the docs here for more info.