GNet Solutions » GNU/Linux Administration

• Get the latest version of Puppet Dashboard from the puppetlabs site, install dependecies and install the Puppet Dashboard package:
  

  wget http://apt.puppetlabs.com/pool/wheezy/main/p/puppet-dashboard/puppet-dashboard_1.2.23-1puppetlabs1_all.deb
  sudo apt-get install rake dbconfig-common libdbd-mysql-ruby libhttpclient-ruby1.8 mysql-server
  sudo dpkg -i puppet-dashboard_1.2.23-1puppetlabs1_all.deb
  

Configuration¶

• Create the databases and user for puppet dashboard:
  

  sudo mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf -Bse 'CREATE DATABASE dashboard_production CHARACTER SET utf8;'
  sudo mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf -Bse 'CREATE DATABASE dashboard_development CHARACTER SET utf8;'
  sudo mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf -Bse 'CREATE DATABASE dashboard_test CHARACTER SET utf8;'
  sudo mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf -Bse "CREATE USER 'dashboard'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'verysecretpassword';" 
  sudo mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf -Bse "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON dashboard_production.* TO 'dashboard'@'localhost';" 
  sudo mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf -Bse "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON dashboard_test.* TO 'dashboard'@'localhost';" 
  sudo mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf -Bse "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON dashboard_development.* TO 'dashboard'@'localhost';" 
  

Next, edit /etc/puppet-dashboard/databse.yml to make sure it contains the password we just set. In this example verysecretpassword. Edit the mysql configuration file /etc/mysql/my.conf to make sure the setting max_allowed_packet is 32M or more.

• Change directory to the location where Puppet Dashboard is installed and run the rake test to fill the database we just created:
  

  cd /usr/share/puppet-dashboard/
  sudo rake RAILS_ENV=production db:migrate
  

• Make sure the webserver can write to the log files
  

  sudo chown www-data.www-data /usr/share/puppet-dashboard/log/*
  

• Start the Puppet Dashboard WEBrick server
  

  sudo -u www-data ./script/server -e production
  

You should now be able to access the Puppet Dashboard webinterface on port 3000 of your server. http://puppet.example.com:3000/

Passenger¶

The WEBrick server is fine for testing, but not for production. Hence we run Puppet Dashboard with the Apache webserver.

• Stop the running WEBrick server with crtl+c and copy the example config file to the apache vHosts directory and enable the vHost.
  

  sudo cp /usr/share/puppet-dashboard/ext/passenger/dashboard-vhost.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/puppet-dashboard
  sudo a2ensite puppet-dashboard
  

• Edit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/puppet-dashboard to match following. Don't forget to change ServerName.
  

  Listen 3000
  PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby
  PassengerHighPerformance on
  PassengerMaxPoolSize 12
  PassengerPoolIdleTime 1500
  PassengerStatThrottleRate 120
  
  <VirtualHost *:3000>
          SetEnv RAILS_ENV production
          RailsBaseURI /
          ServerName puppet.example.com
          DocumentRoot /usr/share/puppet-dashboard/public/
          <Directory /usr/share/puppet-dashboard/public/>
                  Options None
                  AllowOverride AuthConfig
                  Order allow,deny
                  allow from all
          </Directory>
    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/puppet-dashboard_error.log
    LogLevel warn
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/puppet-dashboard_access.log combined
    ServerSignature On
  </VirtualHost>
  

• Restart Apache to load our configuration:
  

  sudo service apache2 restart
  

Open a webbrowser and go to the url you chose with the ServerName directive. Goto http://docs.puppetlabs.com/dashboard/manual/1.2/bootstrapping.html#configuring-puppet and configure PuppetMaster to communicate with Puppet Dashboard.

Note: I had to add a Listen directive to the vHost configuration, as the server would not automatically listen on the configured port and I did not set the Puppet Dashboard on the default port 80.

Resources¶

• http://docs.puppetlabs.com/dashboard/manual/1.2/bootstrapping.html
• https://wiki.debian.org/PuppetDashboard