Pabawi

Classic Infrastructures Command & Control Awesomeness Pabawi is a web frontend for infrastructure management, inventory and remote execution. It currently provides integrations with Puppet, Bolt, Ansible, PuppetDB, Hiera and SSH. It supports both Puppet Enterprise and Open Source Puppet / OpenVox. It provides a unified web interface for managing infrastructure, executing commands, viewing system information, and tracking operations across your entire environment.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Project Structure
• Screenshots
• Prerequisites
• Installation
  • Quick Start
  • Manual Setup
  • Using Docker Image
• Configuration
• Troubleshooting
• Development and Contributing
• Roadmap
• License
• Support
• Acknowledgments

Features

• Multi-Source Inventory: Nodes from Bolt, PuppetDB, Ansible, SSH
• Command Execution: Ad-hoc commands on remote nodes with whitelist security
• Task Execution: Bolt tasks with automatic parameter discovery
• Package Management: Install and manage packages across infrastructure
• Execution History: Track operations with re-execution capability
• Node Facts: System information from Puppet agents
• Puppet Reports: Run reports with metrics and resource changes
• Catalog Inspection: Compiled catalogs, resource relationships, cross-environment diff
• Event Tracking: Resource changes and failures over time
• Hiera Data Browser: Hierarchical configuration data and key usage analysis
• Real-time Streaming: Live output for command and task execution
• Expert Mode: Full command lines and debug output
• Graceful Degradation: Continues operating when individual integrations are unavailable

Project Structure

pabawi/
├── frontend/          # Svelte 5 + Vite frontend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/    # UI components
│   │   ├── pages/         # Page components
│   │   └── lib/           # Utilities and stores
│   ├── package.json
│   └── vite.config.ts
├── backend/           # Node.js + TypeScript API server
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── bolt/          # Bolt integration (temp)
│   │   ├── integrations/  # Plugin architecture
│   │   │   ├── bolt/      # Bolt plugin
│   │   │   ├── puppetdb/  # PuppetDB integration
│   │   │   ├── puppetserver/ # Puppetserver integration
│   │   │   └── hiera/     # Hiera integration
│   │   ├── database/      # SQLite database
│   │   ├── routes/        # API endpoints
│   │   └── services/      # Business logic
│   ├── test/              # Unit and integration tests
│   ├── package.json
│   └── tsconfig.json
├── docs/              # Documentation
└── package.json       # Root workspace configuration

Screenshots

📸 View Complete Screenshots Gallery

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+ and npm 9+ (or a container engine for Docker deployment)
• Bolt CLI — for Bolt integration (setup)
• Ansible CLI — for Ansible integration (setup)
• Puppet/OpenVox agent — for PuppetDB (setup) and Puppetserver (setup) integrations; provides SSL certs
• Control repo — for Hiera integration (setup)

Installation

Quick Start

The fastest way to get Pabawi running after cloning:

git clone https://github.com/example42/pabawi
cd pabawi
./scripts/setup.sh

The interactive setup script will:

1. Check prerequisites — Node.js, npm, and optionally Bolt, Ansible, Puppet/OpenVox CLIs
2. Generate backend/.env — core settings and integrations (Bolt, PuppetDB, Puppetserver, Hiera, Ansible, SSH) with smart defaults based on detected tools and SSL certs
3. Install dependencies — npm run install:all (with confirmation)
4. Start the application — development mode, full-stack build, or exit

Manual Setup

If you prefer to configure things yourself:

git clone https://github.com/example42/pabawi
cd pabawi

# Install dependencies
npm run install:all

# Create your configuration (use .env.example as reference)
cp backend/.env.example backend/.env
# Edit backend/.env with your settings

# Start in development mode
npm run dev:backend    # Port 3000
npm run dev:frontend   # Port 5173

# Or build and serve everything from the backend
npm run dev:fullstack  # Port 3000

Using Docker Image

To start Pabawi with Docker Compose using the default configuration:

# HINT to keep things simple: Create a dedicated directory where to place:
# data dir for SQLite
# certs dir for puppetdb / puppetserver integration
# control-repo dir for hiera integration
# bolt-project dir for Bolt integration (could also be your control-repo dir) 
mkdir pabawi/
cd pabawi
# Create your configuration file in your current directory (paths in .env are relative to the container)
vi .env

# Run the example42/pabawi image mounting your pabawi dir 
docker run -d \
  --name pabawi \
  --user "$(id -u):1001" \
  -p 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 \
  -v "$(pwd)/pabawi:/pabawi" \
  --env-file ".env" \
  example42/pabawi:latest

This will start the application at http://localhost:3000.

For comprehensive Docker deployment instructions including all integrations, see the Docker Deployment Guide.

Configuration

Pabawi uses a backend/.env file for all configuration. The interactive setup script (scripts/setup.sh) generates this file for you. You can also use backend/.env.example as a reference template.

Key configuration areas:

• Core — port, host, log level
• Bolt — project path, command whitelist, execution timeout
• PuppetDB / Puppetserver — server URL, SSL certificates, token
• Hiera — control repo path, environments
• Ansible — project path, inventory path
• SSH — config path, default user/key, sudo, connection pool limits

For the complete configuration reference, see the Configuration Guide.

For API details, see the Integrations API Documentation.

Troubleshooting

For solutions to common issues including installation, configuration, and integration problems, please refer to the comprehensive Troubleshooting Guide.

Development and Contributing

For development and contributions guidelines check the Development Guide.

For details of the repository files and configurations check the Repository Structure document.

Roadmap

Planned: Tiny Puppet integration, scheduled executions, custom dashboards, audit logging, CLI tool. Under evaluation: Terraform, AWS/Azure CLI, Kubernetes, Choria, Icinga.

Version History

• v0.8.0: RBAC authentication. SSH integrations. Inventory groups
• v0.7.0: Ansible Integration. Used classed aware hiera lookups
• v0.6.0: Code consolidation and fixing
• v0.5.0: Report filtering, puppet run history visualization, enhanced expert mode with frontend logging
• v0.4.0: Hiera integration, puppetserver CA management removal, enhanced plugin architecture
• v0.3.0: Puppetserver integration, interface enhancements
• v0.2.0: PuppetDB integration, re-execution, expert mode enhancements
• v0.1.0: Initial release with Bolt integration

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.

Support

• Technical Summary | Architecture | Configuration | User Guide
• API Reference | Integrations API | API Endpoints | Error Codes
• Bolt | Ansible | Hiera | PuppetDB | Puppetserver
• Authentication | E2E Testing | Troubleshooting | Development | Repo Structure

For help: check the docs, enable expert mode for diagnostics, or open a GitHub issue with version info, config (sanitized), reproduction steps, and error messages.

Acknowledgments

Pabawi builds on: Puppet/OpenVox, Bolt, PuppetDB, Svelte 5, Node.js, TypeScript, SQLite. Thanks to all contributors and the Puppet community.