registry

Table of Contents

1. Overview - What is the registry module?
2. Module Description - What registry does and why it is useful
3. Setup - The basics of getting started with registry
   • Beginning with registry
4. Usage - Configuration options and additional functionality
5. Reference
6. Limitations
7. License
8. Development - Guide for contributing to registry

Overview

This module supplies the types and providers you'll need to manage the Registry on your Windows nodes.

Module Description

The Registry is a hierarchical database built into Microsoft Windows. It stores settings and other information for the operating system and a wide range of applications. This module lets Puppet manage individual Registry keys and values, and provides a simplified way to manage Windows services.

Setup

This module must be installed on your Puppet server. For a complete list of supported operating systems, please take a look at our metadata.json.

Beginning with registry

Use the registry_key type to manage a single registry key:

registry_key { 'HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Puppet':
    ensure => present,
}

Usage

The registry module works mainly through two types: registry_key and registry_value. These types combine to let you specify a Registry container and its intended contents.

Manage a single Registry value

registry_value { 'HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Puppet\Description':
  ensure => present,
  type   => string,
  data   => "The Puppet Agent service periodically manages your configuration",
}

Manage a single Registry value with a backslash in the value name

registry_value { 'HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Puppet\\\ValueWithA\Backslash':
  ensure     => present,
  type       => string,
  data       => "The Puppet Agent service periodically manages your configuration",
}

Manage a single Registry value with a different resource title

registry_value { 'PuppetDescription':
  path       => 'HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Puppet\Description',
  ensure     => present,
  type       => string,
  data       => "The Puppet Agent service periodically manages your configuration",
}

Manage a Registry value and its parent key in one declaration

class myapp {
  registry::value { 'puppetserver':
    key  => 'HKLM\Software\Vendor\PuppetLabs',
    data => 'puppet.puppet.com',
  }
}

Puppet looks up the key 'HKLM\Software\Vendor\PuppetLabs' and makes sure it contains a value named 'puppetserver' containing the string 'puppet.puppet.com'.

Set the default value for a key

registry::value { 'Setting0':
  key   => 'HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Puppet',
  value => '(default)',
  data  => "Hello World!",
}

You can still add values in a string (or array) beyond the default, but you can only set one default value per key.

Purge existing values

By default, if a key includes additional values besides the ones you specify through this module, Puppet leaves those extra values in place. To change that, use the purge_values => true parameter of the registry_key resource. Enabling this feature deletes any values in the key that are not managed by Puppet.

The registry::purge_example class provides a quick and easy way to see a demonstration of how this works. This example class has two modes of operation determined by the Facter fact PURGE_EXAMPLE_MODE: 'setup' and 'purge'.

To run the demonstration, make sure the registry::purge_example class is included in your node catalog, then set an environment variable in PowerShell. This sets up a Registry key that contains six values.

  PS C:\> $env:FACTER_PURGE_EXAMPLE_MODE = 'setup'
  PS C:\> puppet agent --test

  notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_key[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge]/ensure: created
  notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value3]/ensure: created
  notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value2]/ensure: created
  notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_key[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\SubKey]/ensure: created
  notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value5]/ensure: created
  notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value6]/ensure: created
  notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\SubKey\Value1]/ensure: created
  notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value1]/ensure: created
  notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\SubKey\Value2]/ensure: created
  notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value4]/ensure: created
  notice: Finished catalog run in 0.14 seconds

Switching the mode to 'purge' causes the class to only manage three of the six registry_value resources. The other three are purged because they are not specifically declared in the manifest. Notice how Value4, Value5 and Value6 are being removed.

PS C:\> $env:FACTER_PURGE_EXAMPLE_MODE = 'purge'
PS C:\> puppet agent --test

notice: /Registry_value[hklm\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value4]/ensure: removed
notice: /Registry_value[hklm\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value6]/ensure: removed
notice: /Registry_value[hklm\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value5]/ensure: removed
notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value3]/data: data changed 'key3' to 'should not be purged'
notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value2]/data: data changed '2' to '0'
notice: /Stage[main]/Registry::Purge_example/Registry_value[HKLM\Software\Vendor\Puppet Labs\Examples\KeyPurge\Value1]/data: data changed '1' to '0'
notice: Finished catalog run in 0.16 seconds

Manage Windows services

The registry::service define manages entries in the Microsoft service control framework by automatically manipulating values in the key HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\$name\.

This is an alternative approach to using INSTSRV.EXE 1.

registry::service { puppet:
  ensure       => present,
  display_name => "Puppet Agent",
  description  => "Periodically fetches and applies configurations from a Puppet Server.",
  command      => 'C:\PuppetLabs\Puppet\service\daemon.bat',
}

Reference

For information on the classes and types, see the REFERENCE.md

Limitations

• Keys within HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (hklm), HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (hkcr) or HKEY_USERS (hku) are supported. Other predefined root keys (e.g., HKEY_CURRENT_USER) are not currently supported.
• Puppet doesn't recursively delete Registry keys.

Please report any issues through our Module Issue Tracker.

License

This codebase is licensed under the Apache2.0 licensing, however due to the nature of the codebase the open source dependencies may also use a combination of AGPL, BSD-2, BSD-3, GPL2.0, LGPL, MIT and MPL Licensing.

Development

Puppet Inc modules on the Puppet Forge are open projects, and community contributions are essential for keeping them great. We can't access the huge number of platforms and myriad of hardware, software, and deployment configurations that Puppet is intended to serve.

We want to keep it as easy as possible to contribute changes so that our modules work in your environment. There are a few guidelines that we need contributors to follow so that we can have a chance of keeping on top of things.

If you would like to contribute to this module, please follow the rules in the CONTRIBUTING.md. For more information, see our module contribution guide.

Contributors

To see who's already involved, see the list of contributors.