This two-hour workshop will focus on the following: Improving operational efficiency for managing Windows infrastructure Applying configuration baselines to Windows Server and IIS web servers Utilizing PowerShell and Bolt to automate day to day management tasks What's Bolt? Puppet Bolt is the easiest way to get started with DevOps and does not require Puppet knowledge. During this workshop you will utilize WinRM or SSH to communicate with your server environments. You will leave this workshop with a working knowledge of Bolt, and your laptop equipped to start tackling automation challenges across your organization.

1. Managing Your
Windows Infrastructure
with Puppet Bolt

2. 2
@matthewstone
Matthew Stone
Senior Solutions Engineer,
Puppet, Inc.
souldo
matthewrstone

3. Housekeeping
● If you get stuck or are having technical
issues- please submit your questions in the
Q&A Chat and our team can help you out.
● You can also communicate with us via the
event chat.
● This workshop will be recorded, and we will
share the recording afterwards via email.
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4. Agenda
- What is Bolt?
- Installation and Configuration
- Bolt Basics
- Creating a Bolt inventory
- Executing commands and scripts
- Converting scripts to tasks
- Executing tasks
- Executing plans
- Review
- Q & A

5. Our target for today
• You’ve been assigned a machine that will look something like this:
boltshopwin##.classroom.puppet.com
• The highly secure credentials are Administrator / Puppetlabs!
• We will use an alias to refer to this machine as www.
• We will be using Bolt to connect to this machine over WinRM.
• We might optionally RDP to the machine towards the end of the workshop.
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6. What is Bolt?

7. What is Bolt?
• On-demand execution of commands, scripts in any language or level up to Bolt Tasks
and/or Plans.
• Can execute with or without and agent. (Puppet Agent, SSH or WinRM)
• Helps to define your overall automation story. Mature from commands and scripts to tasks
and plans or desired state where it makes the most sense.
• Bolt in Puppet Enterprise offers role-based access controls, a web console for centralized
operations and logging/auditing.
BOLT WORKSHOP7

8. Review - Types of Bolt Automation
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• Commands
Scale a simple command to a plethora of systems.
• Scripts
Write in the language of your choice and target
remote systems.
• Tasks
Execute scripts with input validation, descriptive text
and cross-platform capabilities.
• Plans
Perform a step-based workflow consisting of
commands, scripts, tasks, plans or puppet code.
Note: Miscellaneous other types are available, like “apply” for puppet code and “file” for uploading/downloading files. We will
be focusing on the above. Try ‘bolt --help’ for a list of additional commands.

9. Exercise #1 Installing Bolt

10. Installing Bolt
• Available as a client tool for Windows, MacOS and Linux
• Available as a docker image puppet/puppet-bolt on Docker Hub.
• Available inside of Azure Cloud Shell, both bash and PowerShell variants.
For more installation information, visit:
https://puppet.com/docs/bolt/latest/bolt_installing.html

11. Verifying your Bolt installation
• Open a shell.
• Type bolt --version
• This course requires a version greater than 2.23.0
For more installation information, visit:
https://puppet.com/docs/bolt/latest/bolt_installing.html
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12. Organizing
Bolt Content

13. Organizing Bolt Content
with Puppet Modules
• Use puppet manifests, bolt tasks or bolt plans together inside of one module.
• manifests live in <module>/manifests
• plans live in <module>/plans
• tasks live in <module>/tasks
• Use this method when you want to make your Bolt content accessible to other Puppet
Enterprise users in your organization.
• Does not allow for additional puppet modules to be imported, deferring to your Puppet
control repository.
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14. Organizing Bolt Content
with Bolt Projects
• Bolt Projects are stand-alone content, typically with all dependencies contained within the
project.
• Bolt Projects are decentralized from a traditional Puppet Enterprise infrastructure. We use
the traditional puppet module workflow for that.
• Bolt Projects can pull in any of the 6500+ puppet modules available on the Forge,
including tasks, plans and desired state code.
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15. Exercise #2 Downloading the Bolt Project

16. Exercise #2: Downloading the Bolt Project
https://github.com/puppetlabs-seteam/windows-boltshop
• Clone or download from the above link.
• Place into a ‘boltshop’ directory where you like.
• Open a shell and change to that directory.
• Run bolt task show to verify you have tasks that start with boltshop::.
Note: If you are using PowerShell, make sure your boltshop path is respecting case
sensitivity.
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17. Exercise #2 Review
https://github.com/puppetlabs-seteam/windows-boltshop
• We just downloaded a Bolt Project
• Batteries are included. All dependencies for today’s workshop are included in the
workshop folder.
• This content should also be applicable outside of our virtual workshop environment today.
Kids, try this at home!
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18. About
Bolt Projects

19. What’s in Our Bolt Project?
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File or Folder Description
bolt-project.yaml Project specific metadata (I.e. name, public/private tasks, etc…)
inventory.yaml A static or dynamic list of servers along with relevant connection settings.
Puppetfile A list of modules, versions and dependencies we are using in this project. All modules will download
to the modules folder unless specified as local.
modules/ This folder stores any puppet forge or custom modules that we would like to use with our project.
The list of modules and dependencies are specified in the Puppetfile
tasks/* The folder that contains our Bolt Tasks.
plans/* The folder that contains our Bolt Plans.
files/* Content for our webserver to serve up.

20. Review: bolt-project.yaml
• Contains the name of the project. All
tasks and plans will start with
“boltshop” per the example to the right.
• Contains project specific configuration
items, like a custom inventory or
modulepath.
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21. Review: inventory.yaml
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• Groups
• Targets
• Configuration Options

22. Inventory can be static or dynamic
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Generate inventory dynamically from AWS/Azure APIs or
from Terraform state files…

23. Exercise #3 Managing a Static Inventory File

24. Exercise #3: Managing a Static Inventory File
1. Edit inventory.yaml
2. Replace the uri and alias fields your
assigned server’s FQDN and ‘www’,
respectively.
3. Credentials are Administrator/Puppetlabs!
4. Open a shell and change to the boltshop
directory.
5. From your shell, run
bolt inventory show --targets windows
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25. Exercise #3 Review
1. Manage your server groups and connection info in the inventory.yaml file.
2. Inventory can be static or dynamic by adding content from the Puppet Forge for Terraform, Azure or
AWS.
3. Inventory can connect to Puppet Enterprise / PuppetDB for querying node already under configuration
management.
4. Dynamic inventory plugins can also be developed for other clouds / inventory systems.
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26. Commands
and Scripts

27. Using Commands and Scripts
1. Commands default to PowerShell (Windows) or
default shell on Linux.
2. If your command line is getting too long or wild,
move it to a PowerShell script (or language of
choice)
3. Scripts can accept arguments, but they are not
validated.
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28. Bolt Syntax
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• Bolt command line syntax:
bolt [command|script|task|plan] run <name> --targets <targets> [options]
• To run a simple PowerShell command on a remote WinRM host:
bolt command run 'write-host Hello World!' --targets 10.0.0.1,10.0.0.2
--user Administrator --password ‘Puppetlabs!' --transport winrm --no-ssl
• To run a simple Bash command on a remote SSH host:
bolt command run 'echo Hello World!' --targets 10.0.0.1,10.0.0.2
--user root --private-key /path/to/key --transport ssh --no-host-key-check

29. Exercise #4 Execute Commands and Scripts

30. Exercise #4: Execute Commands and Scripts
1. Open a shell and change to the boltshop directory.
2. From your shell, run
bolt command run ‘write-output “hello world!”’ --targets windows
3. From your shell, run
bolt script run examples/helloworld.ps1 --targets windows
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31. Exercise #4 Review
1. Let’s Review
• We ran a command and a script. Congrats, you’re an Automator now! Update that resume.
• You just connected to a server over WinRM. SSH and puppet agent are also supported, as well as
both secure and insecure options based on environment.
• If WinRM security or configuration is an issue in your environment and you have PE, using the agent
to manage access is highly recommended.
2. What are we leaving out?
• We’re still using commands and scripts. Task and Plans give us more flexibility and scale better.
3. Aren’t scripts and commands enough?
• Depends on your environment. Getting existing scripts/commands into an automation framework for
reusability can be a crucial first step in organizing your environment for standardization and
consistent work.
• If you are sharing across teams or need to perform more than one action person script, a task or
plan is more suitable.
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32. Tasks

33. Scripts into Tasks!
Scripts into Tasks!
• Make your scripts more useful in Bolt by turning them into Puppet Tasks
• Any script file in a tasks directory of a module becomes a Task
• Parameters in Bolt pass through to the Param() block in PowerShell.
• Tasks are name spaced automatically, using familiar Puppet syntax:
site/mymod/tasks/script1.ps1 # mymod::script1
site/aws/tasks/show_vpc.sh # aws::show_vpc
site/mysql/tasks/sql.rb # mysql::sql
site/yum/tasks/init.rb # yum
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34. Define “more useful” please.
Scripts into Tasks!
• Descriptive text. Know what the task does, what the parameters do and what
type of input you need to enter for the task to be successful.
• Can be cross platform. Define scripts to execute for both Linux and Windows
servers.
• Can be imported into Puppet Enterprise and executed through the GUI.
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35. What is a task?
1. A script (in the language of your choice…I know, last time.)
2. Some metadata in JSON format
1. A description for the task and each parameter.
2. Any required or optional parameters along with the type of input required.
3. Any additional implementation details, like which script to execute per OS.
3. Lives in the <project>/tasks folder.
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36. Exercise #5 Execute a Task

37. Exercise #5: Execute a Task
• Run bolt task show to see available tasks.
• Run bolt task run boltshop::helloworld –t www
• Run bolt task run boltshop::helloworld –t www name=<yournamehere>
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38. Exercise #5 Review: Execute a Task
• Tasks offer descriptions for the task itself and any parameters
• Tasks contain metadata for input validation and other runtime requirements.
• Tasks contain the mentioned metadata (JSON) file and the PowerShell script. The
metadata is what makes it a task. Otherwise, it’s just PowerShell.
• Bolt parameters map to parameters defined in the Param() block in PowerShell by default.
You can also specify STDIN in the implementation details, or environment variables on
Linux.
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39. Task Metadata
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• Descriptions
• Parameters
• Parameter Types

40. Review: boltshop::windowsfeature
• Look at the powershell script and how we would think of reusing this across teams.
• Action – install or uninstall
• Feature – the name of the feature
• If you’ve worked with declarative languages like PowerShell DSC or Puppet, this starts to
push the boundary of where it’s easier to just use those as the solution.
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41. Exercise #6 Execute a Windows Feature Task

42. Exercise #6: Execute a Windows Feature Task
1. Open a shell and change to your boltshop directory
2. Run bolt task show boltshop::windowsfeature
3. Run the following:
bolt task run boltshop::windowsfeature --targets www action=install feature=web-webserver`
4. When completed, visit http://<your_webserver>
5. Congrats, you’ve built a webserver!
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43. Exercise #6 Review
1. We ran a task! Script + Metadata = Task.
2. We installed a Windows Feature. Think about all the additional parameters that go into the
Install-WindowsFeature cmdlet and what we missed.
3. That’s a good case for explicit commands or desired state.
4. We ran a single task, but building a web server typically involves more than just installing a
Windows feature. A step-based approach to automating the stand up of the webserver
will help here.
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44. Plans

45. About Bolt Plans
1. Step based orchestration. In short, “Do this, then that”.
2. Can mix and match command, scripts, tasks, other plans and even puppet code.
3. Can specify different targets per step.
4. Can use YAML or the puppet language. Ease vs. Power.
5. We will use YAML for today’s workshop
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46. Our webserver plan
1. Each step can be a command, script,
task, plan, puppet apply or file
upload/download
2. Each step can have different targets.
3. Descriptions exist for both the plan and
each step.
4. Global parameters can be used in any
step.
5. Bolt executes steps in order.
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47. Let’s Review
Open plans/build_webserver.yaml in
your text editor.
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48. Why use puppet code?
1. The Puppet Forge has about 6500 modules available today.
2. If you have scripts or commands saved somewhere it’s pretty simple to create tasks. If
you have nothing, you can leverage the forge instead of reinventing the wheel.
3. Idempotency.
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49. Why use puppet code?
1. I want to ensure the web server is installed.
2. I want to ensure the management tools are installed with it.
3. I don’t have to apply any further conditional logic.
4. If I want to remove it, switch ensure to absent.
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50. Writing Puppet Code with YAML
1. Specify with the resources key vs
script/task/command/etc…
2. Parameters go under parameters.
3. We’ll use puppet code for IIS
instead of a bunch of PowerShell.
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51. Exercise #7 Build a Web Server with a Bolt Plan

52. Exercise #7: Build a Web Server with a Bolt Plan
1. Cd to your boltshop directory
2. Run bolt plan show boltshop::build_webserver
3. Run bolt plan run boltshop::build_webserver --targets www
4. When completed, visit <your_webserver>
5. Congrats, you’ve customized your webserver.
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53. Exercise #7 Review
1. We just executed a YAML plan that included commands, file uploads and puppet code.
2. We were able to mix and match and specify targets. In this case, it’s the same target, but
each step can target something different.
3. We just orchestrated several steps to create a webserver. The same model can be
applied to a multi-server IIS/SQL setup, patching and rebooting systems and more!
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54. Exercise #8 Adding to your Bolt Plan

55. Lab Steps
1. Open plans/build_webserver.yaml
2. Add a “message of the day”, aka
logon message / legal notice text.
• Under the last IIS resource, add the motd class
• Set your title and content parameters.
• Save the file
3. Run the following:
bolt plan run boltshop::build_webserver --targets www
4. You should see resources changed. Now RDP to
your server.
5. If successful, after auth you should be prompted
with the MOTD.
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56. Exercise #8 Review
1. We can easily add puppet code to our modules by leveraging the Puppet Forge.
2. When we re-apply puppet code we see a report of resources changed.
3. Visit forge.puppet.com for more available modules
and additional Windows content.
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57. Exercise #9 One more thing…

58. Bolt, now with 100% more PowerShell cmdlets!
1. Bolt now has PowerShell cmdlets!
2. The same Bolt command in PS cmdlet is:
Invoke-BoltPlan -Name boltshop::build_webserver -Targets www
3. Run Get-Command *Bolt* for a list of cmdlets.
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59. Lab #9 Review
1. Bolt now has PowerShell cmdlets!
2. Cmdlets can be used instead of the traditional Bolt commands.
3. This is an early feature, so watch this space and let us know if you plan on using it in
the follow up survey.
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60. Wrapping
It Up

61. What did I learn today?
- What is Bolt.
- How to run commands and scripts through Bolt.
- How to build and execute a task for scaling scripts and commands and distributing
amongst teams with diverse skill sets.
- How to build and execute a YAML plan to build step-based orchestration to stand up a
simple IIS webserver.
- How to use puppet modules within a plan.
- How to use PowerShell cmdlets to execute a command.
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62. What’s Next?
- Fill out the follow-up survey!
- Join the Puppet Community slack!
(especially the #bolt and #windows channels)
https://slack.puppet.com
- Attend our virtual Puppet Camp Central on 9/24. Includes talks about Bolt on Windows!
https://info.puppet.com/09-24-Puppet-Camp-America-Central.html
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63. PUPPET OVERVIEW63

64. Get in Touch
● Matt Stone: matthew.stone@puppet.com
● John Laffey: john.laffey@puppet.com
● Dan Shauver: shauver@puppet.com
● Rajesh Radhakrishnan:
rajesh.radhakrishnan@puppet.com
● Paul Reed: paul.reed@puppet.com
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65. Thank you!
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