# Puppet Environments

An Puppet environment is a particular version of the Puppet code/configuration. In our infrastructure an Puppet environment always corresponds to a git branch in the main puppet codebase: https://git.psi.ch/linux-infra/puppet

To all time our Puppet server provides two environments, __prod__ and __preprod__. 

## Development Environments

Beside the __prod__ and __preprod__ environments, development environments for feature branches of the puppet git repository are automatically put on and removed from the puppet server. To create a new feature branch and test environment simply:

__ON YOUR COMPUTER!__

1. Clone the puppet repository https://git.psi.ch/linux-infra/puppet
2. Create a new branch with a name that matches following regex: `^[a-z]+[a-z,0-9,_]+$` (e.g. my_test_branch)
3. Do the necessary changes and commit your changes
4. Push the new branch / changes to the git server

Whenever the git server receives a push a gitlab-runner gets triggered on the puppet server that does the automatic checkout of the branch and registers this as a new development environment. 

Note: If branches are deleted on the git server the corresponding checkouts/environments on the puppet server will also be removed. (with some delay)

To use/test the code changes via the puppet test environment use
```
puppet agent -t --environment=issue_x
```

The following video shows all the necessary steps in detail. (The left terminal is a shell on my workstation, the right terminal is a shell on a test server)

<video controls width="100%" src="../../_static/videos/dev_environments.m4v">video</video>

Once you are done with the develoment and testing create a merge request for the branch to the __preprod__ branch.

### Development Environment Names

The name of an branch/environment must match the following regex expression:  `^[a-z]+[a-z,0-9,_]+$`

If the name is not compliant with this rule, a push of the branch to the git server will not be possible.