Red Hat Satellite and Puppet

Users of Red Hat Satellite will see changes coming out with regard to how Satellite interacts with Puppet. Satellite has long bundled Puppet in the distribution, using Puppet both as the Satellite installer and for configuration management. Users also had the option to leverage Satellite as an External Node Classifier (ENC) for their Puppet estates. Red Hat acquired Ansible, an imperative configuration management tool, in late 2015. Starting in version 6.9, the use of Satellite as a Puppet ENC was deprecated along with most of the other supported Puppet functionality. Puppet is still, and will continue to be, the installer for Satellite. All other Puppet functionality is scheduled to be removed from the Satellite distribution package in version 7.

The change can pose a significant challenge for organizations who are using Puppet in conjunction with Satellite to manage their estates. Migration from Puppet to Ansible could be a significant lift in many installations. Ansible Tower is now Satellite’s recommended option in lieu of Puppet. However, the supported Tower versions are currently tied tightly to the Satellite version, so existing Tower customers may be required to upgrade.

What can I do?

All hope is not lost! While the bundled functionality and support are removed, Puppet and Puppet Enterprise can still be used outside the Satellite environment. If you need an overview of the differences between Puppet, a declarative engine, and Ansible’s imperative offering, please see this article.

There are a number of options for replacing the ENC functionality: Puppet Enterprise includes a GUI ENC, ServiceNow can serve as a Puppet ENC, a variety of open source options are available, and users can leverage other existing sources as node classifiers.

Satellite and Puppet can still coexist

Current users of both Satellite and Puppet shouldn’t view this change as an end to the functionality but rather a decoupling of the two separate products. Satellite and Puppet can still coexist. Puppet can be used to keep diverse environments properly configured throughout your infrastructure, whether on-prem or in the cloud. Puppet Patch Management can be used for OS-level patching of operating systems, allowing a single tool to patch various Linux and Windows environments with full visibility across your estate.

To learn more or speak to someone about the impact of the upcoming changes to Puppet within Red Hat Satellite, please visit this page to arrange to speak with a Puppet expert.

John Laffey is a Technical Product Marketing Director at Puppet.

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