In this installment, we'll walk through the Puppet Enterprise split installation process using the GUI installer.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, ensure you have:
- At least 3 nodes provisioned for your split install (Master/CA, PuppetDB, Console)
- RHEL/CentOS 7+ or Ubuntu 16.04+ on all nodes
- Minimum 8GB RAM per node (16GB recommended for production)
- Forward and reverse DNS configured for all nodes
- Firewall rules allowing traffic on ports 443, 4433, 5432, 8081, 8140, 8142, 8143, 61613
The Installation Process
Download the PE tarball from the Puppet website and extract it on your Master of Masters node:
curl -JLO 'https://pm.puppet.com/puppet-enterprise/latest/puppet-enterprise-latest-el-7-x86_64.tar.gz'
tar xzf puppet-enterprise-*.tar.gz
cd puppet-enterprise-*
sudo ./puppet-enterprise-installer
The GUI installer will launch on port 3000. Navigate to https://your-master:3000 in your browser to begin the guided setup.
Key Configuration Decisions
During installation, you'll specify which components run on which nodes. For a proper split install:
1. Master node — PuppetServer, Certificate Authority
2. PuppetDB node — PuppetDB and PostgreSQL
3. Console node — PE Console services
Take note of the passwords and database names you set during this process — you'll need them later when configuring compilers and other components.
After the installer completes, run Puppet on all three nodes in order: Master first, then PuppetDB, then Console. This ensures certificates and configurations are properly distributed.