This is an original planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, an official standard, or legal advice. Example addresses use documentation ranges. Review every command before you paste it.
What this hour is for
All three apply a desired state. Puppet manifests and Salt states can be drafted here. Ansible already has its own page. The generators draft text. They do not connect. Secrets do not go in the file. The vault or the master's secret store holds them.
Pick one tool for the fleet. Hosts in the list are ones you administer. Do not turn off host-key checking as the habit. Do not apply a run during the reading.
One package or one file. A second concern waits.
The change you can finish
Apply nothing while you are writing the note. When the lab window opens, it is one change on the host named in the ticket. Read the draft, then the host, then decide.
Rollback is the file, the package version, or the snapshot you saved first. You do not invent a rollback after the only copy is gone.
- Name the hosts you administer.
- Pick one tool.
- Draft one package or one file.
- Keep secrets out of the file.
- Do not apply a run.
- Stop.
Mistakes that outlive the command
Ansible vs Puppet vs Salt goes wrong in a small set of ways. The list is here so the ticket can forbid them before the window.
- A host you do not administer.
- A secret in the manifest.
- Host-key checking disabled as the default.
- A run applied during the reading.
- Three tools started on one fleet.
Decisions to write down
One decision for Ansible vs Puppet vs Salt: One tool. The hosts are yours. No secret is in the file. Host-key checking stays on. And nothing was applied.
Checks before you call it done
Confirm this before you call the change done: The tool is chosen. The hosts are written. One change is in the draft. No secret is present. And nothing was applied. If one of those fails, stop.
# One tool.
# Hosts you administer.
# No secrets in the file.
# Do not apply a run during the reading.Before you leave the host
Ansible vs Puppet vs Salt ends when the hostname in the prompt matches the hostname in the ticket. If it does not, you are on the wrong host. Stop. A command that succeeded on the wrong host is not progress.
The draft stays a draft until a person has read the names in it. A generator does not log into the host and does not know which disk is empty. You delete a line that names a host, a path, or an account you did not write down.
192.0.2.10/24, gateway 192.0.2.1, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, and 2001:db8::/32 are documentation. example.com is a documentation name. They belong in the note. They are not values you leave on a host because a draft included them.
prompt-for-this is a reminder that a secret is missing. It is not a password, a key, or a token you save in the ticket or in git. The real secret stays in the password store.
One change is the window. If two things move and the result is wrong, you will not know which one did it. The next change waits for its own page.
If the same step fails twice, stop for the day. The failure is the result. Adding a forum command beside a half-applied change produces a host nobody can rebuild. Restore the copy you took first.
A second person reads the hostname and the change aloud. If they cannot find them in the ticket, the note is not done. Silence is not agreement. Then leave the host alone.
This page is a planning guide. It is not a vendor manual, not an official standard, and not permission to touch a host you do not administer. You do not disable a firewall, AppArmor, or SELinux to make a check pass.
Tools for this guide
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Related pillar guides
More in this cluster
The pillar for this page, and the next published pages filed with it.