How to handle Puppet version differences between linux distributions

Solution 1:

I'd suggest going with the latest stable puppetmasterd where you can. It will vastly simplify the process of upgrading your clients when the time comes around. Such relatively young and fast moving projects often generate minor releases for features and bugfixes quite frequently, which can prove invaluable. You should of course still read each ChangeLog diligently to pre-empt anything that might affect your environment during an upgrade.

Packaging your own version shouldn't be that difficult and it's a skill that, in the future, you should find valuable enough to take time mastering now. I've had to roll my own pre-release packages for Puppet to workaround bugs that I've run into before now.

In this particular case though, you might find that the newer packages from Debian's unstable tree will work for you. Alternatively there is even a bleeding edge PPA, if you want to, well, get cut.

Solution 2:

You should upgrade your ubuntu versions.. but if you need an older redhat version

http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/13712760/dir/redhat_el_5/com/puppet-0.25.4-1.el5.noarch.rpm.html