Puppet Account Module

Table of Contents

1. Module Description - What the module does and why it is useful
2. Setup - The basics of getting started with account
3. Usage - Configuration options and additional functionality
4. Reference - An under-the-hood peek at what the module is doing and how
5. Limitations - OS compatibility, etc.
6. Development - Guide for contributing to the module

Module Description

The account module eases the creation of UNIX user accounts.

Features:

• Creation/Removal of accounts (via the ensure parameter)
• Account creation w/UID control
• Setting the login shell
• Dedicated Group creation w/GID control (optional)
• Home directory creation (and optionally management via /etc/skel)
• Support for system users
• SSH key management (optional)

Setup

This module has no specific dependencies, as it merely wraps several common native Puppet types in some logic.

Usage

Standard usage of this module would probably look something like this:

account { 'sysadmin':
  home_dir => '/opt/sysadmin',
  groups   => [ 'sudo', 'users' ],
  comment   => 'SysAdmin user',
  ssh_keys => {
    'some_key_comment' => {
      type => 'ssh-rsa',
      key  => 'AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEArfQmMkvtWRnwas3DIti9qAuSFQXKcE0kdp5f42PP8l2kTytJPPWp5T/q8PXDQ2d2X5KplMCMDiUQkchqhmDp840jsqBQ9iZPejAjv3w2kITgScFNymAcErtzX52iw4lnUyjZzomCW8G3YthQMaRm2NkI4wcVcjzq+SKyTfzrBoH21RgZlfcx+/50AFRrarpYqel9W5DuLmmShHxD8clPS532Z/1X+1jCW2KikUhdo98lxYTIgFno05lwFOS9Ry89UyBarn1Ecp1zXpIBE7dMQif3UyLUTU9zCVIoZiJj4iO5lemSSV0v8GL97qclBUVJpaCpc4ebR7bhi0nQ28RcxQ==',
    },
  },
}

The type can also be virtualized and realized later (see the official documentation for more information on this pattern):

@account { 'sysadmin': groups  => [ 'sudo', 'users' ] }

There is no implicit Hiera support in this module. For defining accounts via Hiera data, it is recommended to use the profile portion of the role/profile pattern.

Reference

For the detailed reference, see the inline docs:

$ bundle exec rake doc

Limitations

• Does not automatically create arbitrary extra groups. Use the native group type for this.

Development

Please use the github issues functionality to report any bugs or requests for new features. Feel free to fork and submit pull requests for potential contributions.

v1.0.0: 2018-01-15 Changes:

• Drop support for Puppet 3.x and lower
• Rewrite to support Puppet 4 Type System
• Add support for multiple SSH keys
• Add acceptance testing via Beaker

v0.1.0: 2016-05-01 Changes:

• Add 'purge' option to forcibly remove user directories - Igor Ajdišek (@igoraj)
• Support for the 'allowdupe' feature of the 'user' type - Aurelien Requiem (@aureq)
• Solaris compatibility - Sauce (@sauce)
• Root user support - Sauce (@sauce)
• Configurable homedir permissions - Justin Lambert (@jlambert121)
• Puppet lint used in testing - Justin Lambert (@jlambert121)

v0.0.5: 2013-07-23 Changes:

• Use 'username' to construct homedir, instead of 'title' - Yuvi Panda (@yuvipanda)

v0.0.4: 2013-07-04 Changes:

• Add a 'gid' parameter for use when create_group => false
• Updates test fixtures

v0.0.3: 2013-05-11 Changes:

• Adds a 'comment' parameter for the created user account - Facundo Guerrero (@guerremdq)

v0.0.2: 2013-03-02 Changes:

• Version bump to fix potential inconsistencies with older dev releases

v0.0.1: 2013-03-02 Changes:

• Initial PuppetForge release