Docs: PuppetDB 1.1 » API » Commands


PuppetDB 1.1 » API » Commands

Commands are used to change PuppetDB’s model of a population. Commands are represented by command objects, which have the following JSON wire format:

{"command": "...",
 "version": 123,
 "payload": <json object>}

command is a string identifying the command.

version is a JSON integer describing what version of the given command you’re attempting to invoke.

payload must be a valid JSON object of any sort. It’s up to an individual handler function to determine how to interpret that object.

The entire command MUST be encoded as UTF-8.

Command submission

Commands are submitted via HTTP to the /commands/ URL and must conform to the following rules:

  • A POST is used
  • There is a parameter, payload, that contains the entire command object as outlined above. (Not to be confused with the payload field inside the command object.)
  • There is an Accept header that contains application/json.
  • The POST body is url-encoded
  • The content-type is x-www-form-urlencoded.

Optionally, there may be a parameter, checksum, that contains a SHA-1 hash of the payload which will be used for verification.

When a command is successfully submitted, the submitter will receive the following:

  • A response code of 200
  • A content-type of application/json
  • A response body in the form of a JSON object, containing a single key ‘uuid’, whose value is a UUID corresponding to the submitted command. This can be used, for example, by clients to correlate submitted commands with server-side logs.

The terminus plugins for puppet masters use this command API to update facts, catalogs, and reports for nodes.

Command Semantics

Commands are processed asynchronously. If PuppetDB returns a 200 when you submit a command, that only indicates that the command has been accepted for processing. There are no guarantees as to when that command will be processed, nor that when it is processed it will be successful.

Commands that fail processing will be stored in files in the “dead letter office”, located under the MQ data directory, in discarded/<command>. These files contain the command and diagnostic information that may be used to determine why the command failed to be processed.

List of Commands

“replace catalog”, version 1

The payload is expected to be a Puppet catalog, as a JSON string, including the fields of the catalog wire format. Extra fields are ignored.

“replace catalog”, version 2

The payload is expected to be a Puppet catalog, as either a JSON string or an object, conforming exactly to the catalog wire format. Extra or missing fields are an error.

“replace facts”, version 1

The payload is expected to be a set of facts, as a JSON string, conforming to the fact wire format

“deactivate node”, version 1

The payload is expected to be the name of a node, as a JSON string, which will be deactivated effective as of the time the command is processed.

Experimental commands

“store report”, version 1

The payload is expected to be a report, containing events that occurred on Puppet resources. It is structured as a JSON object, confirming to the report wire format.

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