Assignment

Lab 2 - Configuration Management

Generative Artificial Intelligence Policy

Details

YELLOW: Limited GenAI Usage Allowed For your lab assignments, you may make limited use of GenAI tools to help with answering questions or debugging issues. These tools may also be helpful to understand dense documentation or search for answers online, but you must review all AI results for accuracy! Your submitted and graded lab must be your own work done entirely by you.

• Citations Required: Any usage of GenAI must be noted and cited directly in the work.
• No Direct AI Results: For this assignment, you may not include the GenAI results directly in your submission - this includes configuration files. You must write them yourself and adapt them to your specific setup, not just copy them from AI output.
• Understand Your Work: You may be asked to explain your work in detail as part of this project. Failure to do so may be considered a violation of this policy.
• Policy Violations: Violations may result in a grade of 0 for the assignment and other sanctions approved through the K-State Honor Council.

Instructions

Create two different Puppet Manifest Files that meet the specifications below. Each one will be applied to a newly installed virtual machine of the appropriate operating system configured as described in Task 0. The best way to accomplish this is to treat this assignment like a checklist and check things off as you complete them.

If you have any questions about these items or are unsure what they mean, please contact the instructor. Remember that part of being a system administrator (and a software developer in general) is working within vague specifications to provide what your client is requesting, so eliciting additional information is a very necessary skill.

Also, to complete many of these items, you may need to refer to additional materials and references not included in this document. System administrators must learn how to make use of available resources, so this is a good first step toward that. Of course, there’s always Google!

Time Expectation

This lab may take anywhere from 1 - 6 hours to complete, depending on your previous experience working with these tools and the speed of the hardware you are using.

Task 0: Create New Virtual Machines & Snapshots

Create new Windows 11 and Ubuntu 26.04 virtual machines for this lab. When creating the virtual machines and installing the operating system, use the same information from Lab 1. You should create the cis527 account during installation.

DO NOT PERFORM ANY ADDITIONAL CONFIGURATION AFTER THE INSTALLATION IS COMPLETE EXCEPT WHAT IS LISTED BELOW!

After installing the operating system, install ONLY the following software:

• OpenVox Agent 8
  • Windows: Download and install the latest OpenVox Agent 8 from OpenVox Downloads. Look for the file openvox-agent-<version>-x64.msi that is most recent.
  • Ubuntu: See the video later in this module for instructions to install Puppet. These instructions are also summarized in the Installing OpenVox Agent: Linux guide.
    • Recall that Ubuntu 26.04 is codenamed “Resolute Raccoon”, so use the url https://apt.voxpupuli.org/openvox8-release-ubuntu26.04.deb to get the correct version on Ubuntu in the first step.
    • Follow the instructions in the video later in this lab to add Puppet to the sudo path. The path for OpenVox is the same as Puppet.

• VMware Tools (Windows) and either open-vm-tools-desktop or VMware Tools (Ubuntu)

• All System Updates (Windows & Ubuntu)

On the Windows virtual machine only, create a folder at C:\install and download the following installers. Do not change the name of the installers from the default name provided from the website. You may choose to do this step using the download_file Puppet module instead.

• Firefox (Firefox Setup 153.0.3.exe as of 8/27/2026)
• Thunderbird (Thunderbird Setup 153.0.2.exe as of 8/27/2026)
• Notepad++ (npp.8.9.7.Installer.x64.exe as of 8/27/2026)

Once you have your virtual machines configured, make a snapshot of each called “Puppet Testing” for your use. As you test your Puppet manifest files, you’ll reset to this snapshot to undo any changes made by Puppet so you can test on a clean VM. The VMs used for grading will be configured as described here.

Task 1: Puppet Manifest File for Ubuntu

Create a Puppet Manifest File for Ubuntu 26.04 that defines the following configuration. This configuration is very similar to, but not exactly the same as, Lab 1, so read through it carefully. Assume that the machine you are applying the manifest file on is configured as described above in Task 0.

• Users (Same as Lab 1)

  • adminaccount | AdminPassword123 (Administrator type or sudo group)
  • normalaccount | NormalPassword123 (Normal type)
  • guestaccount | GuestPassword123 (Normal type)
  • evilaccount | EvilPassword123 (Normal type)
  • _Create groups as needed below_
    Note

    Makes sure you can actually log in as these users after creating them! Many students forget to check this step and lose points because the accounts are created, but don’t actually allow users to log in.

• Files & Permissions (Same as Lab 1)

  • Create a folder /cis527 (at the root of the system, not in a user’s home folder). Any user may read or write to this folder, and it should be owned by root:root (user: root; group: root).
  • Within /cis527, create a folder for each user created during task 5 except for cis527, with the folder name matching the user’s name. Make sure that each folder is owned by the user of the same name, and that that user has full permissions to its namesake folder.
  • Create a group named admingroup and set permissions on each folder using that group to allow both cis527 and adminaccount to have full access to each folder created in /cis527. No other user should be able to access any other user’s folder.
  • In each subfolder of /cis527, create a text file. It should have the same owner and access permissions as the folder it is contained in. The name and contents of the text file are up to you.
  • See this screenshot for what these permissions may look like in Terminal. This was created using the command ls -lR in the Linux terminal. These screenshots are from an earlier version of this lab using different paths and usernames, but the permissions structure is the same.

• Software (Same as Lab 1)

  • Mozilla Firefox (firefox)
  • Mozilla Thunderbird (thunderbird)
  • Apache Web Server (apache2)
  • Synaptic Package Manager (synaptic)
  • GUFW Firewall Management Utility (gufw)
  • ClamAV (clamav)

• Services - Ensure the following services are running:

  • Apache Web Server
  • Clam AntiVirus’ FreshClam Service
    Note

    You will have to find the appropriate name for each service. –Russ

Task 2: Puppet Manifest File for Windows 11

Create a Puppet Manifest File for Windows 11 that defines the following configuration. This configuration is very similar to, but not exactly the same as, Lab 1, so read through it carefully. Assume that the machine you are applying the manifest file on is configured as described above in Task 0.

• Users (Same as Lab 1)

  • AdminAccount | AdminPassword123 (Administrators & Users group)
  • NormalAccount | NormalPassword123 (Users group)
  • GuestAccount | GuestPassword123 (Guests group only)
  • EvilAccount | EvilPassword123 (Users group)
  • _Create groups as needed below_
    Note

    Makes sure you can actually log in as these users after creating them! Many students forget to check this step and lose points because the accounts are created, but don’t actually allow users to log in.

• Files & Permissions (Same as Lab 1)

  • Create the folder C:\cis527. It should be owned by the cis527 account, but make sure all other users can read and write to that folder.
  • Within C:\cis527, create a folder for each user created during task 2 except for cis527, with the folder name matching the user’s name. Make sure that each folder is owned by the user of the same name, and that that user has full permissions to its namesake folder.
  • Create a group named AdminGroup containing cis527 and AdminAccount, and set permissions on C:\cis527 for that group to have full access to each folder created in C:\cis527. No other user should be able to access any other user’s folder.
  • In each subfolder of C:\cis527, create a text file. It should have the same owner and access permissions as the folder it is contained in. The name and contents of the text file are up to you.
  • Don’t remove the SYSTEM account or the built-in Administrator account’s access from any of these files. Usually this is as simple as not modifying their permissions from the defaults.
  • See this screenshot and this screenshot for what these permissions should look like in PowerShell. This was created using the command Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Get-Acl | Format-List in PowerShell. These screenshots are from an earlier version of this lab using different paths and usernames, but the permissions structure is the same.

• Software - Install the latest version of the following software. The installation should be done SILENTLY without any user interaction required. In addition, Puppet should be able to detect if they are already installed, and not attempt to install them again if the manifest is run multiple times.

  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Mozilla Thunderbird
  • Notepad++
    Note

    You will need to research the appropriate options to give to the installer through Puppet for them to install silently. For this lab, you should not use any Windows package managers such as Chocolatey or Ninite. The installation files will be already downloaded and stored in C:\install. Also, you’ll need to make sure your resource names exactly match the names of the packages after they are installed, or Puppet will attempt to reinstall them each time the manifest file is applied. –Russ

• Services - Ensure the following services are running:

  • DHCP Client
  • DNS Client
  • Windows Update
    Note

    You will have to find the appropriate name for each service. –Russ

Task 3: Upload to Canvas & Contact Instructor

Upload your completed Puppet Manifest Files to Canvas and then contact the instructor for grading. You may continue with the next module once grading has been completed. In general, this lab does not require interactive grading, but you are welcome to request a time if you’d prefer.