As you know, Puppet has a bunch of useful built-in resource types: packages, files, users, and so on. Usually, you can do everything you need to do by using either combinations of these built-in resources, or define, which you can use more or less in the same way as a resource (see Chapter 3, Writing Better Manifests for information on definitions).

In the early days of Puppet, creating your own resource type was more common as the list of core resources was shorter than it is today. Before you consider creating your own resource type, I suggest searching the Forge for alternative solutions. Even if you can find a project that only partially solves your problem, you will be better served by extending and helping out that project, rather than trying to create your own. However, if you need to create your own resource type, Puppet makes it quite easy. The native types are written in Ruby, and you will need a basic familiarity with Ruby in order to create your...