Puppet Interview Questions and Answers for 2025

Puppet automates the processes of system and server configuration management, improves organizational infrastructure and efficiency, strengthens security, and speeds up the whole system. That's why organizations should use Puppet. Having in-depth knowledge of full course use of Puppet in an organization will help you crack the interview.

The Puppet process is straightforward. Puppet master is the name of the central server. It holds all configuration information for the several nodes it manages through manifests. Puppet agents are installed on the controlled nodes. Using facts, data about the nodes is acquired. The agents provide the facts to the puppet masters. 

The Puppet master creates a catalog to define node configurations as an outcome of collecting all the data. The catalog is then returned to the agents by the puppet master. The agents utilize these catalogs and their information to change their nodes' configuration and then report the results to the Puppet master.

In Puppet Manifests are the files that have the client configuration specified. It is written in Ruby language, and the file name ends with the .pp file extension. The default manifest for Puppet installed with apt is /etc/puppet/manifests/site.pp. This is one of the most important puppet interview questions for freshers. Working knowledge of manifests is very important to introduce yourself as a professional.  

A module is a collection of manifests and data (including facts, files, and templates) with a defined directory structure. Modules are helpful for organizing your Puppet code since they enable you to divide your code into numerous manifests. Puppet modules can be found in the module directory- /etc/puppetlabs/code/environments/production/modules.

If you're using Puppet to manage resources on a node, you'll need a catalog to detail how everything should be set up. The Puppet code manifests are compiled into a catalog by the main server. Basically, catalogs are documents that detail the ideal configuration for each node's resources that are managed by Puppet. And, the knowledge of catalogs is one of the most asked puppet interview questions.  

Puppet Agent will send a request to the Puppet Master at the specified run interval. Puppet Kick is a tool that activates Puppet Agent when Puppet Master requests it. In the earlier versions of Puppet, Puppet Kick was an important component. But, in the latest versions of Puppet, the utility of this tool has been deprecated.

When it comes to orchestration, MCollective (Marionette collective) packs a punch. You may do operations on thousands of servers all at once by utilizing premade plugins or creating your own. So, MCollective allows you to execute parallel jobs seamlessly. It uses a publish/subscribe message queue to send the commands to the parallel systems. Its ease of use made most organizations look for a system administrator with MCollective knowledge. You can consider it to be one of the most crucial puppet interview questions and answers.

To add a node to your Puppet Enterprise (PE) inventory, the main server must receive a certificate signing request (CSR) from a node that has a Puppet agent installed on it, and you must accept the CSR. Accepting the CSR enables Puppet to execute upon that node and impose your settings, adding node data to PuppetDB and making the node accessible across the PE interface. 

The agent will automatically send a certificate signing request (CSR) to the main server if you activate agents from the console. If you take a different approach, such as adding agents using an install script, you may need to launch Puppet after agent installation in order to produce the CSR. 

From the command line or PE terminal, you may accept CSRs. 

Command Line: 

• To view CSR: sudo puppetserver ca list 
• To sign a CSR: sudo puppetserver ca sign --certname <NAME> 
• To make the node available in the console: puppet agent -t 

PE Console: 

Certificates > Unsigned certificates > Accept or Reject > Accept All or Reject All. 

You can use Jira as a ticketing system for managing requests and changes; in addition to that, you can have your own internal system for handling requests. After that, you can use Git and the Puppet Code Manager app to perform standard procedures with Puppet's source code management. 

In addition, you should run Puppet updates via Jenkins's beaker testing framework as a part of your continuous integration process. 

Resources are basic units required for modeling system configurations. It describes system attributes like particular package users and networking details. 

Here is an example of resource declaration: 

user {'andrew': 
ensure => present, 
uid => '100', 
gid => '100', 
shell => '/bin/bash', 
home => '/home/andrew' 
} 

All the resources in Puppet Master are associated with a specific resource type. It offers information on the type of configuration the resource manages. Puppet has some in-built resource types; the list includes cron jobs, files, services etc. 

Also, you can save custom resources which are written in Ruby. It has exactly similar capabilities as the in-built resource type available in Puppet. 

In Puppet, a function can take one or multiple parameters as arguments. It's possible to write your own functions that will transform data and construct values. With functions, you can get a calculated value from the final expression. 

The example of function syntax in Puppet is as follows, 

function <MODULE NAME>::<NAME>(<PARAMETER LIST>) >> <RETURN TYPE> { 
... body of function ... 

final expression, which will be the returned value of the function 

} 
function apache::bool2http(Variant[String, Boolean] $arg) >> String { 
case $arg { 
false, undef, /(?i:false)/ : { 'Off' } 
true, /(?i:true)/ : { 'On' } 
default : { "$arg" } 
} 
} 

Puppet uses the Facter tool to acquire system information before requesting a catalog for a managed node or generating one using Puppet Apply; this information is called Facts. 

You can utilize these facts anywhere you choose in your manifests, as their values have been allocated to variables. 

Like facts, Puppet also uses a particular class of variables it calls built-in variables. 

When assembling a catalog, Puppet code has access to the following information: 

• Facter's essential information. 
• Both custom facts and external facts are present in your modules.

Class is a package of resources bundled together to set up a specific system in the desired way. They are specified in the manifest files of Puppet modules. 

The details of the codes used by a class may be found in its definition. While class definition does make the class usable in manifests, it does not do any evaluation. 

Below is the example class definition: 

class example_class { 
... 
code 
... 
} 

Every managed node makes a request to the Puppet master server for its own unique configuration catalog when the system is set up as an agent-master architecture. 

As part of this setup, Puppet agent software is deployed and executed on controlled nodes. Also, the Puppet Server is installed and operated on several servers.

Every Puppet agent routinely reports facts and requests a catalog from the Puppet master. The master gathers data from several sources, including the node in question, and then produces a compiled catalog of that node's contents. When a catalog is received, the Puppet agent applies the catalog to the node by verifying each resource included in the catalog. It checks for resources and makes adjustments to them if they are not in the intended condition. Also, it may report on the modifications that would have been made in "no-op" mode.

Puppet can be used independently as a stand-alone architecture. For that, each managed node has to maintain its own independent copy of the configuration data and catalog. 

In Puppet stand-alone architecture, the Puppet Apply application is executed on managed nodes as a corn job or as a scheduled activity. Apart from running automatically, it can perform manually for lesser setup chores or when setting up a new server. 

In stand-alone architecture, similar to Puppet master, Puppet Apply also requires access to several configuration data sources to create a catalog specific to the managed node. 

Then, Puppet Apply instantly applies the catalog once it is compiled by verifying each resource it represents. It checks for resources and makes adjustments to them if they are not in the intended condition. In the no-op mode, it can also inform on the necessary adjustments that might have been made. 

Once the catalog is applied, Puppet Apply saves a report on disk. It may be set up to report information centrally. This how the independent copy of the configuration data and catalog are created and maintained.