Puppet manifest not running - puppet

Question

I used to just include all of my puppet modules like so:
include user_manager
include pp_package_manager
include ppcc_code_manager
include ppcc_backup
include pp_db_manager
include pp_apache_manager
include pp_rabbit_manager
include pp_salt_manager
include pp_freeswitch_manager
include ppcc_services_manager
This caused lots of dependency problems and I had to run the puppet agent multiple times before they would all resolve themselves. I then tried using Stages to clean that up, resulting in this:
stage { 'code': require => Stage['main'], before => Stage['backup'], }
stage { 'backup': before => Stage['big-packages'], }
stage { 'big-packages': before => Stage['freeswitch'], }
stage { 'freeswitch': before => Stage['services'] }
stage { 'services': }
node 'blah.example.com' {
class { 'pp_package_manager': stage => 'main', }
class { 'user_manager': stage => 'main', }
class { 'ppcc_code_manager': stage => 'code', }
class { 'ppcc_backup': stage => 'backup', }
class { 'pp_db_manager': stage => 'big-packages', }
class { 'pp_apache_manager': stage => 'big-packages', }
class { 'pp_rabbit_manager': stage => 'big-packages', }
class { 'ppcc_services_manager': stage => 'services', }
class { 'pp_salt_manager': stage => 'big-packages', }
class { 'pp_freeswitch_manager': stage => 'freeswitch', }
}
I even tried putting everything in the node definition, using arrow notation, defining the stages before and then using arrow notations. Each time, nothing happened. No errors, just nothing. Even using --debug, the puppet agent would just... stop.
Finally, I just tried using arrow notations between each of the class declarations.
class { 'user_manager': } ->
class { 'pp_package_manager': } ->
class { 'ppcc_code_manager': } ->
class { 'ppcc_backup': } ->
class { 'pp_db_manager': } ->
class { 'pp_apache_manager': } ->
class { 'pp_rabbit_manager': } ->
class { 'pp_salt_manager': } ->
class { 'pp_freeswitch_manager': } ->
class { 'ppcc_services_manager': }
That didn't run either. I'm pretty much all out of ideas now. Why is nothing happening when I run the puppet agent? What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I can't really comment on the issues without seeing what your manifests look like.
But I think there is something that could help you: Have you read about the roles and profiles pattern? It helps with these kind of design issues and helps narrowing down which manifests are causing problems.
It also allows you to apply testing to each component or group of components, so you can narrow down what the issue is that's causing the agent not to run.
Some example posts about it here:
https://puppetlabs.com/presentations/designing-puppet-rolesprofiles-pattern
http://garylarizza.com/blog/2014/02/17/puppet-workflow-part-2/
http://rnelson0.com/2014/07/14/intro-to-roles-and-profiles-with-puppet-and-hiera/