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

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

       --workdir, -w value
              Override the default /var/cfengine work directory  for  testing  (same  as  setting
              CFENGINE_TEST_OVERRIDE_WORKDIR)

       --debug, -d
              Enable debugging output

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

       --self-diagnostics, -x value
              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 value
              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 value
              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

       --timing-output, -t
              Output timing information on console when in verbose mode

       --trust-server, -T value
              Possible values: 'yes' (default, trust the server when bootstrapping), 'no' (server
              key must already be trusted)

       --color, -C value
              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)

       --timestamp, -l
              Log timestamps on each line of log output

       --log-modules, - value
              Enable even more detailed debug logging for specific areas of  the  implementation.
              Use together with '-d'. Use --log-modules=help for a list of available modules

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