Ordering puppet resources with run stages

class runstages::standard {

    # declare additional run stage

    stage { 'stage01': }

    Stage['stage01'] -> Stage['main']

    # assign classes to stages

    class { 'yumrepos':

      stage => 'stage01',

    }->

    class {'authentication':  # Active Directory auth setup

      stage => 'stage01',

    }->

    class {'hosts':  # hosts file

      stage => 'stage01',

    }

}

Stage['main'] is the default run stage. If we don't explicitly assign a puppet class to a stage, then it will be in the main stage.

In the above example, created a custom stage called stage01 and assigned classes to it. As we can see, stage01 is fired before the stage main. The -> chaining arrows also ensure ordering. So, the three classes within the stage01 are run in a specific order. As an alternative, we could have specified three different run stages for each class, but we prefer grouping all three into a run stage, for scalability.

Then apply the runstages::standard class to our hosts via our External Node Classifier (ENC) e.g. Foreman, if we use one, or in our site manifest. With Foreman, I had to remove the puppet classes yum repo, authentication, and hosts from my host group(s) otherwise you'll get duplicate declaration warnings.

Relevant Blogs:

Puppet Multi-master 

Puppet Container Registry 

Chef data bags  

Kubernetes Hardway