Puppet: Could not find default node by name with - apache

Question

I'm new at puppet. First I installed and configured puppet.
If I check my certs on my master:
+ "puppet" (SHA256) FB:57:B2:B7:18:99:0F:15:DB:F0:E1:E8:12:31:99:75:BF:05:46:8D:78:A9:C4:DD:68:9E:A4:xxx (alt names: "DNS:puppet", "DNS:puppetmaster.example.com")
+ "puppetclient.example.com" (SHA256) 64:4F:0C:B2:EA:53:6B:2D:E3:5B:11:DB:80:E3:DF:AD:A6:AF:B5:B9:DB:05:6F:79:5D:E5:8Exxx
I try to apply some site.pp.
Here is my init.pp
class apache2 {
package { 'apache2':
ensure => installed,
}
service { 'apache2':
ensure => true,
enable => true,
require => Package['apache2'],
}
}
Here is my site.pp
node 'puppetclient.example.com' {
include apache2
}
I try:
sudo puppet apply site.pp and I get the following error
Error: Could not find default node or by name with 'puppet, puppet.example.com, puppet.example' on node puppet
Error: Could not find default node or by name with 'puppet, puppet.example.com, puppet.example' on node puppet
It seems it tries to execute my .pp on a host which does not exist (probably default hostnames). What am I doing wrong. I want it to be executed on my puppetclient.example.com.
Thanks

Answer 1

The error and the hostname from your comment imply that you are using the apply command on a wrong host i.e. the master not the remote client.
If you want to execute the command on different host then the puppet-master (server) you would need to install puppet agent on the remote client and run the command on the client. i.e. sudo puppet agent -t this will require the agent to be configured.
Puppet uses data from the facter to determine the node name. And facter data is populated from the actual hostname, /etc/hosts as well as /etc/sysconfig/network plus other information. You can read more about it on Puppets facter page.
The easies way to check the hostname is to run hostname command or facter hostname or facter fqdn
Bellow is how Puppet check the node name from the official website:
A given node will only get the contents of one node definition, even if two node statements could match a node’s name. Puppet will do the following checks in order when deciding which definition to use:
If there is a node definition with the node’s exact name, Puppet will use it.
If there is a regular expression node statement that matches the node’s name, Puppet will use it. (If more than one regex node matches, Puppet will use one of them, with no guarantee as to which.)
If the node’s name looks like a fully qualified domain name (i.e. multiple period-separated groups of letters, numbers, underscores and dashes), Puppet will chop off the final group and start again at step 1. (That is, if a definition for www01.example.com isn’t found, Puppet will look for a definition matching www01.example.)
Puppet will use the default node.
Thus, for the node www01.example.com, Puppet would try the following, in order:
www01.example.com -- A regex that matches www01.example.com
www01.example -- A regex that matches www01.example
www01 -- A regex that matches www01
default
P.S.
If you are going to downgrade this please be kind enough to provide a reason.

Answer 2

The command puppet apply is for constructing a catalog from local manifest files and data and applying it to the local machine. You are running it on your master, and your site manifest does not provide a node block that can be matched to that machine, so Puppet errors out. If you want to use puppet apply then you must arrange for the needed manifests and data to be present on the machine you want to configure, and you must run puppet apply there.
If you want to use a master / agent configuration, then you must run the master service or the puppetserver service on some designated machine, and all the manifests and data must reside there. Other machines do not need to have manifests or data, and they configure themselves by running puppet agent (locally), not puppet apply. The agent is often run as a daemon, but it can also be run in one-off mode, which many people use to run it under control of a separate scheduler, such as cron.
Obviously, you cannot configure a remote machine simply by running a command on the master, without some form of cooperation from the remote machine -- neither with Puppet nor with any other system you might imagine. Nor would you want your machines to be susceptible to such unrestricted remote control.
If you're looking for bona fide remote control then you could consider Puppet's "MCollective" product. It requires cooperation from the machines to be controlled, just as Puppet does, but it provides for ad hoc and on-demand control, which Puppet does not do. Among many other things, you can use it to run puppet agent remotely, on demand.