jerakia

Introduction

This is a puppet module to manage Jerakia, a data lookup tool.

Jerakia can be used as a hiera backend, or plugged directly into Puppet as a data_binding terminus.

Jerakia is a pluggable hierarchical data lookup engine. It is not a database, Jerakia itself does not store any data but rather gives a single point of access to your data via a variety of back end data sources. Jerakia is inspired by Hiera, and can be used a drop in replacement. Hiera itself is a good tool, however it suffers from some degree of limitation in its architecture that makes solving complex edge cases a challenge. Jerakia is an attempt at a different way of approaching data lookup management. Jerakia started out as a prototype experiment to replace hiera in order to solve a number of complicated requirements for a particular project, over time it matured a bit and we decided to open source it and move it towards a standalone data lookup system.

For more information on Jerakia, visit:

• The official website - jerakia.io
• Blog post part 1: Solving real world problems with Jerakia
• Blog post part 2: Extending Jerakia with lookup plugins

Configuring with Puppet

Quick start

For a very quick working set up you can configure Jerakia with all the defaults, and install a default lookup policy

    class { '::jerakia': }
 
    jerakia::policy { 'default': }

After running puppet, populate some data and look up from the command line

    # mkdir /var/lib/jerakia
    # cat <<EOF > /var/lib/jerakia/common.yaml
    > ---
    > foo: hello world
    EOF
    
    # jerakia -k foo
    hello world
    

Class: jerakia

The jerakia class supports the following optional parameters

• package_install_options : array of install options for package (default: undef)
• package_name : name of the package to install (default: jerakia)
• package_provider: provider to use (default: gem)
• package_uninstall_options : array of uninstall options for package (default: undef)
• package_version: package version (default: latest)
• install_package: If set to false, don't manage the package (default: true)
• config_dir: Location of the configuration directory
• config_replace: If set to false, will not overwrite the config after creation
• policy_dir: Location of the policy directory
• manage_config_dir: Create/manage the config dir (default: true)
• manage_plugin_dir: Create/manage the plugin dir (default: true)
• manage_policy_dir: Create/manage the policy dir (default: true)
• manage_log_dir: Create/manage the parent directory of the logfile path (default: true)
• plugin_dir: Location of the plugins
• logfile: Path to the logfile
• log_level: Loglevel (default: info)
• logfile_owner: Logfile owner (default: puppet)
• logfile_group: Logfile group (default: puppet)
• logfile_mode: Logfile mode (default: 0644)
• private_key: If using eyaml, the path to the private key (default: empty)
• public_key If using eyaml, the path to the public key (default: empty)
• enable_schemas: Enable or disable schemas by setting true or false
• schema_opts: A hash containing schema override options
• plugin_opts: A hash of options to be passed to plugins

Examples:

class { 'jerakia': }

class { 'jerakia':
  schema_opts => {
    "docroot" => "/var/lib/jerakia/data/_schema",
  }
}

class { 'jerakia':
  plugin_opts => {
    "my_plugin" => {
      "param" => "value",
    },
  }
}

Defined Type, jerakia::policy

Jerakia policies are written in Ruby DSL and reside under the $policy_dir directory. The module provides a helper defined type for managing policies. The contents of the policy file can be sourced from any Puppet module by providing the template parameter. All data in the params parameter will be passed to the template. An example quick start default policy is provided and can be enabled using:

jerakia::policy { 'default': }

You can injecty our own templates and data into a policy by overriding the defaults. eg:

jerakia::policy { 'default':
  template => 'mymodule/jerakia.erb',
  params   => {
    'docroot' => '/var/lib/jerakia',
    'mydata'  => 'myvalue',
  }
}

The contents of the params hash is arbitry and entirely dependant on what your template looks for. See templates/default_policy.erb for an example

The jerakia::policy type supports the following parameters

• policy_dir: The location of policy files, defaults to the value defined in jerakia::policy_dir
• params: A hash of parameters to be consumed by the policy template
• template: The template to use (default: jerakia/default_policy.erb)
• replace: If set to false then Puppet will not overwrite the policy file after creation (default: true)

Hiera 5 data provider

This module also provides the Hiera 5 data provider for integrating Puppet 4.9+ (Hiera 5) with Jerakia Server

The data provider should be configured as a lookup_key type level in your Hiera hierarchy using the jerakia function, eg:

---

version: 5

hierarchy:
  - name: Jerakia
    lookup_key: jerakia
    options:
      token: puppet:63d0626015b5993e6e6c35da06c2548a6c631f5634f3d7056cdd074156a8183d5eff04f825dc447b
      scope:
        environment: "%{environment}"
        role: "%{facts.role}"

Please see Integration with Puppet from the official documentation for more details on using the Hiera 5 backend