Multipuppet

Multipuppet is a term used in information technology to describe a deployment pattern in which configuration management is handled across multiple Puppet masters and a distributed set of agents. It is not a formal product, but a descriptive approach to scaling Puppet deployments beyond a single master, often combined with centralized code repositories, classifiers, and orchestration tooling.

A typical multipuppet setup includes several Puppet master instances, a load balancer to route agent requests, and a method for distributing manifests and catalogs, such as a central code repository and automated deployment pipelines. Data such as Hiera information may be replicated or partitioned per master or per environment. Certificate management and access control must be coordinated across masters to maintain trusted communication with agents.

Use cases include large enterprises with thousands of nodes, geographically distributed deployments, or environments requiring fault tolerance and segmentation. The pattern can support regional data locality, regulatory separation, and continued operation if one master experiences issues. It also enables modular scaling, allowing separate teams to manage different subsets of infrastructure while maintaining a unified policy framework.

Challenges include ensuring catalog consistency, synchronizing certificate authorities, and coordinating failover or disaster recovery. Multipuppet adds operational complexity and risk if not carefully planned, requiring robust change management, monitoring, and disaster recovery procedures. Tools such as external node classifiers, orchestration platforms, or Puppet Enterprise features can ease management, though they may introduce additional layers of coordination.

See also: Puppet, multi-master configurations, configuration management, orchestration.