Puppet is an infrastructure as code tool and configuration management framework used to automate the provisioning and state orchestration of server fleets. It functions as a declarative state orchestrator that manages server configurations and system settings to ensure consistency and reproducibility across a fleet of machines.
The system utilizes a declarative state modeling approach and an idempotent execution engine to maintain configuration state and prevent environment drift. It employs resource-based abstraction and a client-server architecture to translate high-level specifications into concrete system changes across multiple operating systems.
The platform covers a broad range of administrative workflows, including automated server provisioning, enterprise systems administration, and infrastructure configuration automation. It also includes capabilities for infrastructure testing, such as automated test execution, acceptance testing, and the provisioning of test hosts in virtual environments.
The system can be configured to run as a background service using native initialization scripts or unit files.