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Learning Puppet Security

Chapter 2. Tracking Changes to Objects

Have you ever wanted to know whether the content of the files on your server has changed or whether the packages installed on the server have changed? Perhaps you have developers who have access to edit files. Maybe you need to gather information on what has changed for production use.

If you have changed the tracking requirements that require you to report on specific items changing on our system, then the Puppet auditing and change tracking system can be a great solution.

Change tracking is the act of monitoring systems for changes and reporting on them. It is a component of more comprehensive auditing, which includes the reporting and other activities surrounding it, ensuring that a system is in compliance. There are numerous software packages available that do this. Many of them are special-purpose tools, such as Tripwire, OSSEC, and AIDE. Puppet can be used to configure many of these tools, which often require fairly extensive setups....

Change tracking with Puppet

Puppet has a variety of ways to track changes. In its normal mode of operation, Puppet will track (and correct) changes to any resources in its catalog. This is by its nature what it's designed for. This can let you know that items have changed, but at the same time let you know that you can correct them to be the way you want them to be specified.

If you don't have a set state for your resources and you just want to know whether they have changed, you can use the audit meta-parameter. There is some evidence that this will be deprecated in Puppet 4; however, it is currently still available as this book is being written.

Finally, one can use noop to monitor changes. In this mode, Puppet will report on any changes to a resource from its baseline; however, it will not make an effort to change them back.

Noop can be used in a variety of fashions and will be covered at the end of the chapter.

The following table summarizes the available change tracking options:

	Declared...

Description

If you are a security professional whose workload is increasing, or a Puppet professional looking to increase your knowledge of security, or even an experienced systems administrator, then this book is for you. This book will take you to the next level of security automation using Puppet. The book requires no prior knowledge of Puppet to get started.

Who is this book for?

What you will learn

Use Puppet manifests to show system compliance and track changes to the operating system resources

Generate security reports using PuppetDB to show that the systems are up to date

Automate CIS compliance using community modules

Configure firewalls automatically based on roles

Demystify the Puppet SSL stack

Set up centralized logging with dashboard search functionality using Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana

Configure your systems to be secure automatically using SELinux with Puppet

Use Puppet to assist with PCI DSS compliance

What do you get with Print?

Instant access to your digital copy whilst your Print order is Shipped

Paperback book shipped to your preferred address

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JORGE CARLOS FRANCO Apr 16, 2015

A very useful resource to learn something about how get your Puppet environment secure and without annoyances.

Amazon Verified review

puppetfans May 28, 2015

Tt is a good learning puppet information, very good to share,thanks

Jascha Casadio May 19, 2016

Despite being such a popular and mature configuration management system, the material covering Puppet is still very limited. Even more, titles covering advanced topics, or version 4 of the language, are as rare as unicorn sighting. Learning Puppet Security belongs to this category and is one of those titles we all Puppetters are eager to get our hands on. It targets intermetidate users who know the basics and are interested in securing the castle.Released early 2015, it covers version 3.x of the language—despite a stable 4 was already released—and spans through some 200 pages. As stated, the book is for intermediate users, which means nothing is said about installing and configuring Puppet.The first thing that comes to the mind reading this book is the interesting choice of topics the author has picked. None of them is usually found in any other Puppet title—apart the certification validation—and all of them play an important role in the toolset of any good DevOps or Systems Engineer. Among them, auditing, logging and network security. Validating certificates, as stated, is a typical topic of the very first chapters of any book of Puppet. Nothing new or different here: The discussion is smooth and well laid out, but is limited to the master-agents scenario. It would have certainly been interesting to have some kind of validation covering the masterlless scenario, which is widely used.Talking about auditing, the author starts with the a discussion about how important it is and why, followed by different options to achieve it and, finally, some code. While enjoyable to read, the topic is covered too superficially. The examples should be more real world and complex. And this is a recurring scenario throughout the whole book: many different interesting concepts are taken into the discussion yes, but while something is said, the reader will often find himself with many doubts and open questions.Overall is an interesting book that covers a very specific advanced topic of Puppet. Given its nature and the levels required to the reader, i would have expected something more complex, complete. The reader gets an idea of what topics to investigate next, but is not given much. For example, the chapters covering the ELK stack, provided that the user know how to set it up correctly, come with very basic hello world like examples, not a complete master/agents example that shows data being gathered and analyzed.I am not fully satisfied with this title and, as such, I don’t feel like recommending it.As usual, you can find more reviews on my personal blog: books.lostinmalloc.com. Feel free to pass by and share your thoughts!

Learning Puppet Security: Secure your IT environments with the powerful security tools of Puppet

What do you get with Print?

Learning Puppet Security

Chapter 2. Tracking Changes to Objects

Change tracking with Puppet

The audit meta-parameter

How it works

Using audit on files

Available attributes

Auditing the password file

Preparation

Creating the manifest

Note

Audit on other resource types

Change tracking with Puppet

The audit meta-parameter

How it works

Using audit on files

Available attributes

Auditing the password file

Preparation

Creating the manifest

Note

Audit on other resource types

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