Puppet Server release notes

Update Puppet Server CA CLI gem to 2.5.0. The included Puppet Server CA CLI gem, which adds the ability to remove expired or arbitrary certs using the prune action, and the ability to remove expired, arbitrary, or all certs from the signed directory using the delete action.

Puppet Server dependency update improvements. Updating Puppet Server dependencies now provides better errors when given config files with invalid extensions, no longer crashes in rare cases when eceiving SIGHUP, and warns in the log file when unable to check for updates.

Update dropsonde to 0.0.8. The included Dropsonde gem has been upgraded to 0.0.8, which adds the ability to list unused modules to the telemetry client report generator. Visit https://dev.to/puppet/cleaning-up-unused-modules-with-dropsonde-44a5 for more information. SERVER-3220

Upgrade JRuby to 9.3.4.0. Puppet Server now uses JRuby 9.3.4.0. SERVER-3133

Make Puppet Server http client respect include_system_store option. Puppet Server's Ruby HTTP client now supports loading certificates from the system trust store that is included with Puppet Agent, as well as loading certs from a file or Java cert store at an arbitrary location via the ssl_trust_store setting. SERVER-2944

RPM should create puppet user with UID/GID 52. When the puppet user and group are created on rpm-based systems, they are now assigned a static UID/GID of 52. SERVER-1381

Change Dropsonde telemetry to Opt-out. Metrics will now be collected with Dropsonde by default. To opt out of metrics collection, configure dropsonde: { enabled: false } in puppetserver.conf. By default, Dropsonde collects metrics when the service is started, and once a week thereafter. SERVER-3170

Enable sles-15-x86_64 builds and testing for puppetserver. We now support puppetserver on sles-15-x86_64. SERVER-3156

Bump BouncyCastle to 1.70. Puppet Server now ships with Bouncy Castle 1.70, which has improved TLS 1.3 support. SERVER-3135

Rocky and Alma support. Puppet Server is now being tested on Rocky and Alma Linux. Use the EL8 packages on these operating systems. SERVER-3099

JRuby pool lock lifecycle logging. The JRuby lock lifecycle of request, acquire, and release is now logged at the INFO level, rather than DEBUG. SERVER-3098

Debian support. Puppet Server is now packaged for Debian 11. It requires Java 11 to be installed. SERVER-3137

CA Authority Key Identifier incorrectly filled with issuer instead of keyid. The self-signed CA signing cert generated by starting puppetserver will now use a keyid for its authority key identifier to match the CA chain generated by puppetserver ca setup. SERVER-3114

CA added a Subject Alternative Name extension to CA certs The CA signing cert no longer has subject alternative names added to it, since they are not meaningful. SERVER-3114

Metrics collection with Dropsonde. Users can now enable module metrics collection via Dropsonde. To turn this on, configure dropsonde: { enabled: true } in puppetserver.conf. By default when enabled, Dropsonde collects metrics when the service is started and once a week thereafter. SERVER-3079

CRL uploading. The CRL update endpoint will now issue a meaningful error message when a CRL without an authority key identifier is sent in the request body. SERVER-3080

el6 support. Removed support for el6 as a server platform.

Retrieve facts from any terminus. The v4 catalog endpoint (used by Impact Analysis) now supports retrieving facts from any facts terminus, if none are provided with the request. SERVER-3050

TLS 1.3 support. Puppet Server now supports TLS 1.3 and associated cipher suites by default. SERVER-3076

Improved performance in list command. Puppetserver CA CLI command list utilizes the updated certificate_status endpoint for a faster performance when listing certificate requests. SERVER-3060

--force flag in certificate generation. The puppetserver ca generate --ca-client command can now take a --force flag, which forces the tool to generate the certificate even if it cannot determine whether Puppet Server is offline. To avoid CA corruption, ensure your server is offline before you use this flag. SERVER-2842

Prune duplicate entries from CRL. In this release, the puppetserver ca subcommand now accepts the prune actions. These actions allow you to prune any duplicate certificates from Puppet’s CRL. SERVER-2740

CRL query speed. Querying CRLs from puppetserver is now faster, resulting in fewer timeouts. SERVER-3020

Scripts as a default mount. Puppet Server has a new default mount named scripts. You can use the new default mount with API endpoints such as file_content, file_metadata, and static_file_content to load scripts from the scripts/ directory of a module. SERVER-3058

Duplicate entries in CRL. Puppet CA no longer allows adding duplicate certificates to the CRL. SERVER-2509

• Add new flag. In this release, the puppetserver ca subcommand now accepts the --verbose flag. If the --verbose flag is passed, it displays additional low-level details about the invoked action (such as details about HTTP requests created by the tool). SERVER-2251

• Specify certificate output in JSON. In this release, the puppetserver ca list action now accepts a --format flag that can be used to display certificates in JSON format. The output format is text by default. SERVER-3006

• Jetty 9.4.42. This release includes a Jetty update to 9.4.42. SERVER-3035

• CRL update endpoint is not enabled by default. The PUT /puppet-ca/v1/certificate_revocation_list endpoint is now enabled by default for clients that have a special cert extension. Previously, you had to manually update the auth.conf file to access this endpoint. SERVER-3033

• Puppet Server cannot use OpenSSL EC files in OpenSSL format. Previously, Puppet Server failed to load private key PEM files that include separate blocks for EC parameters (such as files output by OpenSSL’s EC key gen commands). This issue is now fixed. SERVER-3016

• A command errors because of the subject alternative name. The puppetserver ca generate command no longer errors when allow-subject-alt-names is set to false. SERVER-3032

• The CA API accepts CRL updates. You can now update your CRLs using the new API endpoint: PUT /puppet-ca/v1/certificate_revocation_list. This new endpoint accepts a list of CRL PEMs as a body, inserting updated copies of the applicable CRLs into the trust chain. The CA updates the matching CRLs saved on disk if the submitted ones have a higher CRL number than their counterparts. You can use this endpoint if your CRLs require frequent updates. Do not use the endpoint to update the CRL associated with the Puppet CA signing certificate (only earlier ones in the certificate chain). SERVER-2550

• JRuby 9.2.17.0. In this release, the JRuby version is updated to 9.2.17.0. SERVER-3007

• New apache HTTP client broke URL normalization. A security update to the apache HTTP client introduced an unrelated change to URL normalization. This change affected any use of Puppet’s HTTP client within Puppet Server. In this release, the double slash in a URL path is no longer silently ignored by the HTTP client in Puppet Server. Instead, Puppet Server views it as a different URL and returns a 404. Going forward, remove leading double slashes from URLs. SERVER-3014

• Environment endpoint failed to cache data if given valid etag. Previously, if you used the environment and transport info endpoints, then you might have seen the cache bypassed—despite receiving a 304 Not Modified response. To work around this issue, users must submit a request to the environment_classes endpoint without the etag. This request triggers the correct caching behavior. Note that the console (the consumer of the environment_classes endpoint in PE) must always submit an etag for an environment if it has one. SERVER-3015

• Puppet Server adds SAN when signing CSR. Puppet Server now adds an extension for subject-alternative-name (SAN) when it signs incoming certificate signing requests (CSR). The SAN extension contains the common name (CN) as a dns-name on the certificate. If the CSR comes with its own SAN extension, Puppet Server signs it and ensures the SAN extension includes the CSR’s CN. SERVER-2338

• Attempts to start a compile master failed with a CRL error. The Jetty webserver now uses the local copy of the CRL from Puppet's SSL directory instead of the CA's copy. This fix makes it easier to set up compilers, which always have a disabled CA service and no CRL at the CA path. SERVER-2558

• Puppet Server's updated configuration values. The master-conf-dir, master-code-dir, master-var-dir, master-log-dir, and master-run-dir configuration settings have been deprecated in favor of server-conf-dir, server-code-dir, server-var-dir, server-log-dir, and server-run-dir respectively. The configuration files — which use the new settings — are shipped with the 7.1.0 puppetserver package. Note that the old settings are still honored for backwards compatibility, but we recommend you upgrade to the new settings. SERVER-2867

• Puppet Server failed to issue a warning for the applicable behavior. The warning issued when the CA directory is inside the SSL directory now only prints server logs at startup and when using the puppetserver ca CLI, instead of any time a Puppet command is used. (SERVER-2934)

Released December 2020 and shipped with Puppet 7.1.0.

• JRuby 9.2.14.0. The JRuby version has been bumped from 9.2.13.0 to 9.2.14.0. (SERVER-2925)

• Symlink from the previous cadir has the same permissions as the current cadir. When creating the symlink between the new and legacy cadirs the symlink will now be properly owned by the puppet user. (SERVER-2917)

• CA command line tool failed to honor a section in Puppet's configuration file. The CA command line tool now correctly honors the server sections in the puppet.conf.

• The default value for the cadir setting is now located at /etc/puppetlabs/puppetserver/ca. Previously, the default location was inside Puppet's own ssldir at /etc/puppetlabs/puppet/ssl/ca. This change makes it safer to delete Puppet'sssldir without accidentally deleting your CA certificates.

• The puppetserver CA CLI now provides a migrate command to move the CA directory from the Puppet confdir to the puppetserver confdir. It leaves behind a symlink on the old CA location, pointing to the new location at /etc/puppetlabs/puppetserver/ca. The symlink provides backwards compatibility for tools still expecting the cadir to exist in the old location. In a future release, the cadir setting will be removed entirely. (SERVER-2896)

• The default value for the facts cache is now JSON instead of YAML. You can re-enable the old YAML terminus in routes.yaml. (PUP-10656)

• Support for legacy Puppet auth.conf has been removed and the jruby-puppet.use-legacy-auth-conf setting no longer works. Use Puppet Server's auth.conf file instead. (SERVER-2778)

• Puppet Server no longer services requests for legacy (3.x) Puppet endpoints. Puppet Agents before 4.0 are no longer be able to check in. (SERVER-2791)

• This release removes default support for many cipher suites when contacting Puppet Server. The new default supported cipher suites are: TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256, TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256, TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256, and TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384. This change aligns open source Puppet with Puppet Enterprise. Note that this change may break on old platforms. To re-enable older cipher suites you may edit the webserver.conf. Valid cipher suite names are listed in the JDK Documentation. (SERVER-2913)

• Puppet Server now provides an HTTP client whose API conforms to the HTTP client provided by Puppet. This new client is stored in the Puppet runtime as Puppet.runtime[:http]. (SERVER-2780)