# theforeman/foreman

an application that automates the lifecycle of servers

Repository: https://github.com/theforeman/foreman
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/theforeman-foreman
Homepage: https://theforeman.org
Language: Ruby
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: theforeman, foreman, infrastructure, provisioning, config-management, ruby, puppet, rails, maas, virtualization, hybrid-cloud, infrastructure-management, cloud, hacktoberfest
Last push: 2026-08-26T15:56:49+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 77/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 6250, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2907, forks 1040 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:29.101038+00:00)

## What it is
Foreman is an open-source, self-hosted web application for complete lifecycle management of physical and virtual servers, covering provisioning, configuration management, orchestration, and monitoring. It integrates with Puppet, Ansible, Chef, and Salt, and offers a web UI, RESTful API, and Hammer CLI, with a rich plugin ecosystem including Katello for content management.

## Use cases
- automate bare-metal server provisioning with PXE and DHCP
- manage hybrid cloud VMs across VMware, OpenStack, EC2, and Libvirt from one place
- run a Puppet or Salt external node classifier with reports and audits
- manage OS content, repositories, and activation keys with Katello
- control datacenter hosts via a REST API or CLI instead of a UI
- enforce role-based access control and LDAP authentication for infrastructure teams

## When to choose
- you need to provision and manage thousands of physical and virtual servers across multiple locations
- you want a single tool integrating Puppet, Ansible, Chef, or Salt with reporting and auditing
- you need bare-metal discovery and PXE-based OS installation at scale
- you want a self-hosted alternative to cloud fleet management with a plugin ecosystem

## When to avoid
- you only manage a handful of servers or containers where a config management tool alone suffices
- you want a lightweight SaaS or agentless cloud-native orchestration tool
- you cannot dedicate a Linux host with at least 4GB RAM and a Puppet-based installer
- your focus is Kubernetes-native workflows rather than traditional host lifecycle management

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: stable
- function: configuration-management, deployment, monitoring, api-framework, cli, plugin-system, workflow-automation
- domain: infrastructure-as-code, cloud-computing, self-hosted
- platform: self-hosted, cli
- tags: provisioning, bare-metal, puppet, ansible, salt, chef, hybrid-cloud, server-lifecycle, rbac, katello, smart-proxy, rails, devops, automation, virtualization, linux, web-server, docker

## Member repositories
- theforeman/foreman (main) score 77

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:29.101038+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:34:25.977698+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/theforeman/foreman (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:29.101038+00:00, sha 2eb20b1b73ed)
  - homepage: https://theforeman.org (fetched 2026-08-29T09:49:48.050753+00:00, sha e1a8b89656ff)
  - site_page: https://theforeman.org/manuals/latest/quickstart_guide.html (fetched 2026-08-29T09:49:48.056870+00:00, sha a59ab820bb77)
  - site_page: https://apidocs.theforeman.org/foreman/latest/apidoc/v2.html (fetched 2026-08-29T09:49:48.058780+00:00, sha e68c9a5751a6)
  - site_page: https://apidocs.theforeman.org/katello/latest/apidoc/v2.html (fetched 2026-08-29T09:49:48.061097+00:00, sha 321a9a466879)
  - site_page: https://theforeman.org/manuals/3.19/quickstart_guide.html (fetched 2026-08-29T09:49:48.064074+00:00, sha 46307fdf308a)
  - site_page: https://theforeman.org/manuals/3.18/quickstart_guide.html (fetched 2026-08-29T09:49:48.065824+00:00, sha 2daebc44ac01)
  - site_page: https://theforeman.org/introduction.html (fetched 2026-08-29T09:49:48.054669+00:00, sha 48fb0f879525)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.