As a linux user, you should be familiar with the regular linux commands such as cd, pwd, ls, cp, mv,...etc.
However the Puppet software introduces it's own set of commands that you can also run on the linux terminal. For example, node, master and config. However if you try to run them, you get:
[root@puppetmaster ~]# node -bash: node: command not found [root@puppetmaster ~]# master -bash: master: command not found [root@puppetmaster ~]# config -bash: config: command not found [root@puppetmaster ~]#
Bash hasn't appeared to have recognised these commands and that's because these puppet commands are actually sub-commands of the over-arching "puppet" command. And to run these sub-command, you need to prefix "puppet" i.e. for the node subcommand we do:
[root@puppetmaster ~]# puppet node Error: 'node' has no default action. See `puppet help node`. [root@puppetmaster ~]#
This time, it looks like bash has recognised the node command, but it failed for a different reason, which is that the node command requires further input (arguments/options) in order for it to run. We'll cover those later.
If you just run "puppet" on it's own, you'll get a prompt to run the "help" subcommand, so if you follow this advice and run "puppet help", then you'll get a list of all the available puppet subcommands, along with a short description:
[root@puppetmaster ~]# puppeet -bash: puppeet: command not found [root@puppetmaster ~]# puppet See 'puppet help' for help on available puppet subcommands [root@puppetmaster ~]# puppet help Usage: puppet[options] [options] Available subcommands: agent The puppet agent daemon apply Apply Puppet manifests locally ca Local Puppet Certificate Authority management. catalog Compile, save, view, and convert catalogs. cert Manage certificates and requests certificate Provide access to the CA for certificate management. certificate_request Manage certificate requests. certificate_revocation_list Manage the list of revoked certificates. config Interact with Puppet's settings. describe Display help about resource types device Manage remote network devices doc Generate Puppet documentation and references facts Retrieve and store facts. file Retrieve and store files in a filebucket filebucket Store and retrieve files in a filebucket help Display Puppet help. inspect Send an inspection report instrumentation_data Manage instrumentation listener accumulated data. instrumentation_listener Manage instrumentation listeners. instrumentation_probe Manage instrumentation probes. key Create, save, and remove certificate keys. kick Remotely control puppet agent man Display Puppet manual pages. master The puppet master daemon module Creates, installs and searches for modules on the Puppet Forge. node View and manage node definitions. parser Interact directly with the parser. plugin Interact with the Puppet plugin system. queue Deprecated queuing daemon for asynchronous storeconfigs report Create, display, and submit reports. resource The resource abstraction layer shell resource_type View classes, defined resource types, and nodes from all manifests. secret_agent Mimics puppet agent. status View puppet server status. See 'puppet help ' for help on a specific subcommand action. See 'puppet help ' for help on a specific subcommand. Puppet v3.6.2
One of the main reasons that puppet has adopted this "puppet {subcommand}" system rather than having each command as a standalone, is so to avoid possible conflict's with Linux's native commands. For example, one of puppet's subcommand is called "man" (see in the list above). If puppet's man command was a standalone alone command (i.e. didn't require the "puppet " prefix) then Linux would get confused on whether you are calling the native man command, or Puppet's man command. Therefore the "puppet {subcommand}" actually offers greater clarity, but at the small price of having to type out "puppet " every time you want to call one of puppet's subcommands.
We will cover more about each of these commands as we go through this course.
Reference