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

CFEngine                                           2016-04-18                                        CF-AGENT(8)