`Puppet <http://puppetlabs.com>`_ is an IT Automation and configuration management

software from Puppet Labs that allows System Administrators to define the state of

their IT Infrastructure, thereby providing an elegant way to manage their fleet of

physical and virtual machines.

Puppet is available both as an Open Source and an Enterprise variant. Modules are

small,shareable units of code written to automate or define the state of a system.

`Puppet Forge <https://forge.puppetlabs.com/>`_ is a repository for modules written

by the community for Open Source

and Enterprise Puppet.

Puppet Agents are installed on nodes whose state needs to be monitored or changed.

A desginated server known as the Puppet Master is responsible for orchastrating the

agent nodes.

Agent nodes send basic facts about the system such as to the Operating System, Kernel,

Architecture, IP Address, Hostname etc. to the Puppet Master.

The Puppet Master then compiles a catalog with information provided by the agents on

how each node should be configured and sends it to the agent. The agent enforces the

change as prescribed in the catalog and sends a report back to the Puppet Master.