As we'll see in subsequent chapters, facter may be extended with custom facts written in Ruby. By default, custom facts are not loaded when you run facter.

To pull in the custom facts, you need to specify the -p option to facter, as shown here:

t@cookbook:~$ facter puppetversion

t@cookbook:~$ facter -p puppetversion
5.5.2

Although still valid, the facter -p syntax is now deprecated in favor of using the Puppet face, facts. Puppet faces are the various sub-applications supported by the Puppet command. To see the available faces, run Puppet help, as shown here:

t@cookbook:~$ puppet help

Usage: puppet <subcommand> [options] <action> [options]

Available subcommands:
   
 agent             The puppet agent daemon
 apply             Apply Puppet manifests locally
 ca                Local Puppet Certificate Authority management. (Deprecated)
 catalog           Compile, save, view, and convert catalogs.
 cert              Manage certificates and requests
 certificate       Provide access to the CA for certificate management.
 certificate_request  Manage certificate requests. (Deprecated)
 certificate_revocation_list  Manage the list of revoked certificates. (Deprecated)
 config            Interact with Puppet's settings.
 describe          Display help about resource types
 device            Manage remote network devices
 doc               Generate Puppet references
 epp               Interact directly with the EPP template parser/renderer.
 facts             Retrieve and store facts.
 filebucket        Store and retrieve files in a filebucket
 generate          Generates Puppet code from Ruby definitions.
 help              Display Puppet help.
 key               Create, save, and remove certificate keys. (Deprecated)
 lookup            Interactive Hiera lookup
 man               Display Puppet manual pages.
 master            The puppet master daemon
 module            Creates, installs and searches for modules on the Puppet Forge.
 node              View and manage node definitions.
 parser            Interact directly with the parser.
 plugin            Interact with the Puppet plugin system.
 report            Create, display, and submit reports.
 resource          The resource abstraction layer shell
 status            View puppet server status. (Deprecated)

One difference between facter and Puppet facts is that you may request a single fact from facter, whereas Puppet facts will return all the facts for a node at once as a JSON object (you may request other formats with the --render-as option).