---
name: "cfagent"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "cfengine2"
version: "2.2.10-7"
release: "Debian 9 (Stretch)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/cfagent"
---

# cfagent(8)

system configuration agent

## NAME

cfagent - system configuration agent

## SYNOPSIS

/usr/sbin/cfagent \[options\]

## DESCRIPTION

**cfengine** is a language based system specifically designed for testing and configuring unix-like systems attached to a TCP/IP network. You can think of **cfengine** as a very high level language -- much higher level than Perl or shell. A single statement can result in many hundreds of links being created, or the permissions of many hundreds of files being set. The idea of  **cfengine** is to create a single file or set of configuration files which will describe the setup of every host on your network.

**cfagent** runs on every host and parses one file (or file-set), the configuration of the host is checked against this file and, if desired, any deviations are fixed. **cfagent** reads a configuration file called cfengine.conf in a directory pointed to by the environment variable CFINPUTS. **cfagent** performs host integrity and security checks as well as installing and repairing system configuration.

## COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

- \-a (--sysadm)

  Print only the name of the system administrator then quit.

- \-b (--force-net-copy)

  Forces net copy even if remote server is localhost

- \-c (--no-check-files)

  Do not check access rights on file systems

- \-C (--no-check-mounts)

  Check mount points for consistency. If this option is set then directories which lie in the ”mount point“ area are checked to see whether there is anything mounted on them.

- \-d (--debug)

  Enable debugging output. (parsing -d1,run, -d2, lite -d3)

- \-D (--define)

  Define a compound class symbol of the form alpha.beta.gamma.

- \-e (--no-edits)

  Suppress file editing.

- \-E (--enforce-links)

  Globally force links to be created where plain files or links already exist. You have to use this in interactive mode and answer a yes/no query before **cfagent** will run like this.

- \-f (--file)

  Parse filename after this switch. By default  **cfagent** looks for a file called cfengine.conf in the current directory.

- \-h (--help )

  Help information. Display version banner and options summary.

- \-H (--no-hard-classes)

  Prevents  **cfagent** from generating any internal class name information. Can be used for emulation purposes.

- \-i (--no-ifconfig)

  Do not attempt to configure the local area network interface.

- \-I (--inform)

  Switches on the inform output level, whereby  **cfagent** reports everything it changes..

- \-k (--no-copy)

  Do not copy/image any files.

- \-K (--no-lock)

  Ignore locks when running.

- \-l (--traverse-links)

  Normally  **cfagent** does not follow symbolic links when recursively parsing directories. This option will force it to do so.

- \-L (--delete-stale-links)

  Delete links which do not point to existing files (except in user home directories, which are not touched).

- \-m (--no-mount)

  Do not attempt to mount file systems or edit the filesystem table.

- \-M (--no-modules)

  Ignore modules in actionsequence.

- \-n (--recon,--dry-run,--just-print)

  No action. Only print what has to be done without actually doing it.

- \-N (--negate,--undefine)

  Cancel a set of classes, or undefine (set value to false) a compound class of the form alpha.beta.gamma.

- \-p (--parse-only)

  Parse file and then stop. Used for checking the syntax of a program.

- \-P (--no-processes)

  Do not test the existence of processes, signal processes or  optionally restart them.

- \-q (--no-splay)

  Switch off host splaying (sleeping).

- \-s (--no-commands)

  Do not execute scripts or shell commands.

- \-S (--silent)

  Silence run time warnings.

- \-t (--no-tidy)

  Do not tidy file systems.

- \-u (--use-env)

  Causes  **cfagent** to generate an environment variable CFALLCLASSES which can be read by child processes (scripts). This variable contains a summary of all the currently defined classes at any given time. This option causes some system 5 systems to generate a Bus Error or segmentation fault.

- \-U (--underscore-classes)

  When this option is set,  **cfagent** adds an underscore to the beginning of all hard system classes (like \_sun4, \_linux etc.) This can be used to avoid naming conflicts if you are so injudicious as to name a host by the name of a hard class. Other classes are not affected.

- \-v (--verbose)

  Verbose mode. Prints detailed information about actions and state.

- \-V (--version)

  Print only the version string and then quit.

- \-x (--no-preconf)

  Do not execute the cf.preconf net configuration file.

- \-X (--no-links)

  Do not execute the links section of a program.

- \-w (--no-warn,--quiet)

  Do not print warning messages.

## AUTHOR

Mark Burgess, Oslo University College

## INFORMATION

http://www.cfengine.org