NAME

       cf-agent - evaluate CFEngine policy code and actuate change to the system.

SYNOPSIS

       cf-agent [OPTION]...  [FILE]

DESCRIPTION

       cf-agent  evaluates  policy  code  and  makes  changes  to  the system. Policy bundles are
       evaluated in the order of the provided bundlesequence (this is normally specified  in  the
       common  control  body).  For  each bundle, cf-agent groups promise statements according to
       their type. Promise types are then evaluated in a  preset  order  to  ensure  fast  system
       convergence to policy.

OPTIONS

       --bootstrap, -B
              Bootstrap  CFEngine  to  the  given policy server IP, hostname or :avahi (automatic
              detection)

       --bundlesequence, -b
              Set or override bundlesequence from command line

       --debug, -d
              Enable debugging output

       --define, -D
              Define a list of comma separated classes to be defined at the start of execution

       --self-diagnostics, -x
              Run checks to diagnose a CFEngine agent installation

       --dry-run, -n
              All talk and no action mode - make no changes, only inform of promises not kept

       --file, -f
              Specify an alternative input file than the default

       --help, -h
              Print the help message

       --inform, -I
              Print basic information about changes made to the system, i.e. promises repaired

       --negate, -N
              Define a list of comma separated classes to be undefined at the start of execution

       --no-lock, -K
              Ignore locking constraints during execution (ifelapsed/expireafter) if  "too  soon"
              to run

       --verbose, -v
              Output verbose information about the behaviour of the agent

       --version, -V
              Output the version of the software

       --legacy-output, -l
              Use legacy output format

       --color, -C
              Enable  colorized  output. Possible values: 'always', 'auto', 'never'. If option is
              used, the default value is 'auto'

       --no-extensions, -E
              Disable extension loading (used while upgrading)

CFENGINE

       CFEngine provides automated configuration management of large-scale  computer  systems.  A
       system  administrator  describes the desired state of a system using CFEngine policy code.
       The program cf-agent reads policy code and attempts to bring the current system  state  to
       the  desired  state  described.  Policy  code  is downloaded by cf-agent from a cf-serverd
       daemon. The daemon cf-execd is responsible for running cf-agent periodically.
       Documentation for CFEngine is available at http://cfengine.com/documentation/.

PROMISE THEORY

       CFEngine is built on principles from promise theory, proposed by  Mark  Burgess  in  2004.
       Promise  theory  is a model of voluntary cooperation between individual, autonomous actors
       or agents who publish their intentions to one another in the form of promises.  A  promise
       is  a declaration of intent whose purpose is to increase the recipient's certainty about a
       claim of past, present or future behaviour. For  a  promise  to  increase  certainty,  the
       recipient  needs  to  trust  the promiser, but trust can also be built on the verification
       that previous promises have been kept, thus trust  plays  a  symbiotic  relationship  with
       promises.
       For an introduction to promise theory, please see http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.3294/

AVAILABILITY

       cf-agent is part of CFEngine.
       Binary packages may be downloaded from http://cfengine.com/downloads/.
       The source code is available at http://github.com/cfengine/

BUGS

       Please see the public bug-tracker at http://bug.cfengine.com/.
       GitHub pull-requests may be submitted to http://github.com/cfengine/core/.

SEE ALSO

       cf-promises(8),  cf-agent(8),  cf-serverd(8), cf-execd(8), cf-monitord(8), cf-runagent(8),
       cf-key(8)

AUTHOR

       Mark Burgess and CFEngine AS