puppet_metadata

The gem intends to provide an abstraction over Puppet's metadata.json file. Its API allow easy iteration over its illogical data structures.

• New CLI interface in 6.0.0
• Generating Github Actions outputs
• Work with the API
  • List all supported operating systems
  • List supported major puppet versions
  • Check if an operating systems is supported
  • Get all versions for an Operating System that are not EoL
  • Get all versions for an Operating System that are not EoL after a certain date
• List supported setfiles
• Transfer Notice
• License
• Release information

Version 6.0.0 introduces a new CLI interface, in bin/puppet-metadata. It provides a new way of handling default CLI options, like the path to the metadata.json.

$ bundle exec bin/puppet-metadata --help
Usage: puppet-metadata [options] <action> [options]
        --filename METADATA          Metadata filename

ACTIONS
  eol                 Show which operating systems are end of life
  add_supported_os    Add supported operating systems to metadata.json

See 'puppet-metadata ACTION --help' for more information on a specific action.

--filename is optional. If ommitted, a metadata.json in the current directory will be parsed.

Each action is implemented as a file in lib/puppet_metadata/command/*rb and automatically loaded via lib/puppet_metadata/command.rb.

We can list all releases from metadata.json, that reached their EoL date:

$ bundle exec bin/puppet-metadata eol
Found EOL operating systems
Fedora 40
Ubuntu 20.04

You can also provide a date as YYYY-MM-DD to check for releases that are EoL at a specific date:

$ bundle exec bin/puppet-metadata eol --help
Usage: puppet-metadata eol [options]
        --at DATE                    The date to use

You can read the metadata.json, get all OSes, and afterwards add all releases that aren't EoL: (as mentioned above, --filename is optional)

bundle exec bin/puppet-metadata --filename "$file" list_supported_os

Available parameters:

$ bundle exec bin/puppet-metadata add_supported_os --help
Usage: puppet-metadata add_supported_os [options]
        --at DATE                    The date to use
        --os operatingsystem         Only honour the specific operating system

To get outputs usable in Github Actions, there is the metadata2gha command available. This generates based on metadata.json, such as Beaker setfiles, Puppet major versions and a Puppet unit test matrix.

$ metadata2gha
puppet_major_versions=[{"name":"Puppet 8","value":8,"collection":"puppet8"},{"name":"Puppet 7","value":7,"collection":"puppet7"}]
puppet_unit_test_matrix=[{"puppet":8,"ruby":"3.2"},{"puppet":7,"ruby":"2.7"}]
puppet_beaker_test_matrix=[{"name":"Puppet 8 - Debian 12","env":{"BEAKER_PUPPET_COLLECTION":"puppet8","BEAKER_SETFILE":"debian12-64{hostname=debian12-64-puppet8}"}},{"name":"Puppet 7 - Debian 12","env":{"BEAKER_PUPPET_COLLECTION":"puppet7","BEAKER_SETFILE":"debian12-64{hostname=debian12-64-puppet7}"}}]

Puppet major versions formatted for readability:

[
  {
    "name": "Puppet 8",
    "value": 8,
    "collection": "puppet8"
  },
  {
    "name": "Puppet 7",
    "value": 7,
    "collection": "puppet7"
  }
]

Puppet unit test matrix formatted for readability:

[
  {
    "puppet": 8,
    "ruby": "3.2"
  },
  {
    "puppet": 7,
    "ruby": "2.7"
  }
]

Beaker test matrix formatted for readability

[
  {
    "name": "Puppet 8 - Debian 12",
    "env": {
      "BEAKER_PUPPET_COLLECTION": "puppet8",
      "BEAKER_SETFILE": "debian12-64{hostname=debian12-64-puppet8}"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "Puppet 7 - Debian 12",
    "env": {
      "BEAKER_PUPPET_COLLECTION": "puppet7",
      "BEAKER_SETFILE": "debian12-64{hostname=debian12-64-puppet7}"
    }
  }
]

If you need custom hostname or multiple hosts in your integration tests this could be achived by using the --beaker-hosts option

Option argument is 'HOSTNAME:ROLES;HOSTNAME:..;..' where

• hosts are separated by ';'
• host number and roles are separated by ':'
• Roles follow beaker-hostgenerator syntax If you don't need any extra roles use '1;2;..'

$ metadata2gha --beaker-hosts 'foo:primary.ma;bar:secondary.a'

This results in the following JSON data

[
  {
    "name": "Puppet 7 - Debian 12",
    "env": {
      "BEAKER_PUPPET_COLLECTION": "puppet7",
      "BEAKER_SETFILE": "debian12-64primary.ma{hostname=foo-puppet7}-debian12-64secondary.a{hostname=bar-puppet7}"
    }
  }
]

If you need to Expand the matrix ie by product versions it could be achived by using the --beaker-facter option

Option argument is 'FACT:LABEL:VALUE,VALUE,..' where

• Fact, label and values are separated by ':'
• Values are separated by ','

$ metadata2gha --beaker-facter 'mongodb_repo_version:MongoDB:4.4,5.0,6.0,7.0'

This results in the following JSON data

[
  {
    "name": "Puppet 7 - Debian 12 - MongoDB 4.4",
    "env": {
        "BEAKER_PUPPET_COLLECTION": "puppet7",
        "BEAKER_SETFILE": "debian12-64{hostname=debian12-64-puppet7}",
        "BEAKER_FACTER_mongodb_repo_version": "4.4"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "Puppet 7 - Debian 12 - MongoDB 5.0",
    "env": {
      "BEAKER_PUPPET_COLLECTION": "puppet7",
      "BEAKER_SETFILE": "debian12-64{hostname=debian12-64-puppet7}",
      "BEAKER_FACTER_mongodb_repo_version": "5.0"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "Puppet 7 - Debian 12 - MongoDB 6.0",
    "env": {
      "BEAKER_PUPPET_COLLECTION": "puppet7",
      "BEAKER_SETFILE": "debian12-64{hostname=debian12-64-puppet7}",
      "BEAKER_FACTER_mongodb_repo_version": "6.0"
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "Puppet 7 - Debian 12 - MongoDB 7.0",
    "env": {
      "BEAKER_PUPPET_COLLECTION": "puppet7",
      "BEAKER_SETFILE": "debian12-64{hostname=debian12-64-puppet7}",
      "BEAKER_FACTER_mongodb_repo_version": "7.0"
    }
  }
]

The API can be initialised like this:

require 'puppet_metadata'
metadata = PuppetMetadata.read('/path/to/a/metadata.json')

The metadata object has several different methods that we can call

[9] pry(main)> metadata.operatingsystems
=> {"Archlinux"=>nil, "Gentoo"=>nil, "Fedora"=>["32", "33"], "CentOS"=>["7", "8"], "RedHat"=>["7", "8"], "Ubuntu"=>["18.04"], "Debian"=>["9", "10"], "VirtuozzoLinux"=>["7"]}
[10] pry(main)>

[10] pry(main)> metadata.puppet_major_versions
=> [6, 7]
[11] pry(main)>

[6] pry(main)> metadata.os_release_supported?('Archlinux', nil)
=> true
[7] pry(main)>

[1] pry(main)> require 'puppet_metadata'
=> true
[2] pry(main)> PuppetMetadata::OperatingSystem.supported_releases('RedHat')
=> ["8", "9", "10"]
[3] pry(main)> PuppetMetadata::OperatingSystem.supported_releases('windows')
=> []
[4] pry(main)>

For Operating systems without any known releases, an empty array is returned.

[1] pry(main)> require 'puppet_metadata'
=> true
[2] pry(main)> PuppetMetadata::OperatingSystem.supported_releases('CentOS', Date.parse('2025-04-15'))
=> ["9", "10"]
[3] pry(main)>

CentOS 8 and older aren't listed. 8 is EoL since 2024-05-31.

When running beaker on the CLI, you can specify a specific setfile. puppet_metadata provides bin/setfiles to list all setfiles:

$ bundle exec setfiles
Skipping EOL operating system Debian 10
Skipping EOL operating system Ubuntu 18.04
BEAKER_SETFILE="centos9-64{hostname=centos9-64-puppet8.example.com}"
BEAKER_SETFILE="centos9-64{hostname=centos9-64-puppet7.example.com}"
BEAKER_SETFILE="debian11-64{hostname=debian11-64-puppet8.example.com}"
BEAKER_SETFILE="debian11-64{hostname=debian11-64-puppet7.example.com}"
BEAKER_SETFILE="ubuntu2004-64{hostname=ubuntu2004-64-puppet8.example.com}"
BEAKER_SETFILE="ubuntu2004-64{hostname=ubuntu2004-64-puppet7.example.com}"

As an argument you can provide a path to a metadata.json. If none provided, it assumes that there's a metadata.json in the same directory where you run the command. To make copy and paste easier, each setfile string is prefixed so it can directly be used as environment variable.

This plugin was originally authored by Ewoud Kohl van Wijngaarden. The maintainer preferred that Vox Pupuli take ownership of the module for future improvement and maintenance. Existing pull requests and issues were transferred, please fork and continue to contribute here.

This gem is licensed under the Apache-2 license.

To make a new release, please do:

• Update the version in the puppet_metadata.gemspec file
• Install gems with bundle install --with release --path .vendor
• generate the changelog with bundle exec rake changelog
• Create a PR with it
• After it got merged, push a tag. A github workflow will do the actual release