*NIX App install, manual, Deployment Server or Puppet

[khhenderson]

I would like to install the *NIX App on my Forwarders? I have installed one manually but I have many more. I started putting together a Deployment Server to make all the 20+ forwarders consistent, but Puppet is used for other task to manage these same machines.

Is there a way to install the *NIX App from a rpm?
OR
Is the Deployment Server the better way to go?

[gkanapathy]

The app is just a gzipped tar, so you can deploy it with Puppet. The only things that Deployment Server does other than copying the folder to the apps folder on the target are:

• set enabled/disabled state (which is superfluous, as I've yet to find a reason to deploy a disabled app)
• restart the Splunk service after the update (which Puppet could also do)

If you've already got puppet managing your machines, I would encourage you to use it to manage the Splunk forwarder installation and configuration.

[miwalker · Accepted solution]

I'm becoming a big fan of Deployment Server for splunk configs. The only reason I might use puppet instead would be if the configuration is drastically different for each or groups of the forwarders. Otherwise, blast them all with the same stuff.

Just my 2 pennies.

[hamiltonb]

Yes, but what do you do when you want to install across different environments?