thinQmaster Virtual testing partner Adaptive practice exams that find your weak spots and drill them. Every answer explained. From $69
Enroll

thinQmaster

Find your exam

Five questions free, before you decide.

Step 1 · choose a vendor

In one of our camps? Your practice exams come with the tuition — they are on your study page already.

DevOps & Automation · Intermediate

Push vs Pull Configuration Model

Whether a central server pushes configuration to nodes or nodes periodically pull configuration from a server.

Definition

Ansible uses push over SSH or network APIs from a control node. Puppet and Chef agents pull from a primary server on an interval. Salt supports both. Pull scales well and self-corrects; push is simpler and immediate.

Example

Puppet agents check in every 30 minutes; Ansible runs only when a playbook is executed.

Exam tip

Agentless push = Ansible; agent-based pull = Puppet/Chef.

Related terms