NAME¶
puppet-agent - The puppet agent daemon
SYNOPSIS¶
Retrieves the client configuration from the puppet master and applies it to the
local host.
This service may be run as a daemon, run periodically using cron (or something
similar), or run interactively for testing purposes.
USAGE¶
puppet agent [--certname
name] [-D|--daemonize|--no-daemonize]
[-d|--debug] [--detailed-exitcodes] [--digest
digest] [--disable]
[--enable] [--fingerprint] [-h|--help] [-l|--logdest syslog|
file|console] [--no-client] [--noop] [-o|--onetime] [--serve
handler] [-t|--test] [-v|--verbose] [-V|--version] [-w|--waitforcert
seconds]
DESCRIPTION¶
This is the main puppet client. Its job is to retrieve the local machine´s
configuration from a remote server and apply it. In order to successfully
communicate with the remote server, the client must have a certificate signed
by a certificate authority that the server trusts; the recommended method for
this, at the moment, is to run a certificate authority as part of the puppet
server (which is the default). The client will connect and request a signed
certificate, and will continue connecting until it receives one.
Once the client has a signed certificate, it will retrieve its configuration and
apply it.
USAGE NOTES¶
´puppet agent´ does its best to find a compromise between interactive
use and daemon use. Run with no arguments and no configuration, it will go
into the background, attempt to get a signed certificate, and retrieve and
apply its configuration every 30 minutes.
Some flags are meant specifically for interactive use -- in particular,
´test´, ´tags´ or ´fingerprint´ are useful.
´test´ enables verbose logging, causes the daemon to stay in the
foreground, exits if the server´s configuration is invalid (this happens
if, for instance, you´ve left a syntax error on the server), and exits
after running the configuration once (rather than hanging around as a
long-running process).
´tags´ allows you to specify what portions of a configuration you want
to apply. Puppet elements are tagged with all of the class or definition names
that contain them, and you can use the ´tags´ flag to specify one of
these names, causing only configuration elements contained within that class
or definition to be applied. This is very useful when you are testing new
configurations -- for instance, if you are just starting to manage
´ntpd´, you would put all of the new elements into an
´ntpd´ class, and call puppet with ´--tags ntpd´, which
would only apply that small portion of the configuration during your testing,
rather than applying the whole thing.
´fingerprint´ is a one-time flag. In this mode ´puppet
agent´ will run once and display on the console (and in the log) the
current certificate (or certificate request) fingerprint. Providing the
´--digest´ option allows to use a different digest algorithm to
generate the fingerprint. The main use is to verify that before signing a
certificate request on the master, the certificate request the master received
is the same as the one the client sent (to prevent against man-in-the-middle
attacks when signing certificates).
OPTIONS¶
Note that any configuration parameter that´s valid in the configuration
file is also a valid long argument. For example, ´server´ is a valid
configuration parameter, so you can specify ´--server
servername´ as an argument.
See the configuration file documentation at
http://docs.puppetlabs.com/references/stable/configuration.html for the full
list of acceptable parameters. A commented list of all configuration options
can also be generated by running puppet agent with ´--genconfig´.
- --certname
- Set the certname (unique ID) of the client. The master
reads this unique identifying string, which is usually set to the
node´s fully-qualified domain name, to determine which configurations
the node will receive. Use this option to debug setup problems or
implement unusual node identification schemes.
- --daemonize
- Send the process into the background. This is the
default.
- --no-daemonize
- Do not send the process into the background.
- --debug
- Enable full debugging.
- --detailed-exitcodes
- Provide transaction information via exit codes. If this is
enabled, an exit code of ´2´ means there were changes, an exit
code of ´4´ means there were failures during the transaction,
and an exit code of ´6´ means there were both changes and
failures.
- --digest
- Change the certificate fingerprinting digest algorithm. The
default is MD5. Valid values depends on the version of OpenSSL installed,
but should always at least contain MD5, MD2, SHA1 and SHA256.
- --disable
- Disable working on the local system. This puts a lock file
in place, causing ´puppet agent´ not to work on the system until
the lock file is removed. This is useful if you are testing a
configuration and do not want the central configuration to override the
local state until everything is tested and committed.
- ´puppet agent´ uses the same lock file while it
is running, so no more than one ´puppet agent´ process is
working at a time.
- ´puppet agent´ exits after executing this.
- --enable
- Enable working on the local system. This removes any lock
file, causing ´puppet agent´ to start managing the local system
again (although it will continue to use its normal scheduling, so it might
not start for another half hour).
- ´puppet agent´ exits after executing this.
- --fingerprint
- Display the current certificate or certificate signing
request fingerprint and then exit. Use the ´--digest´ option to
change the digest algorithm used.
- --help
- Print this help message
- --logdest
- Where to send messages. Choose between syslog, the console,
and a log file. Defaults to sending messages to syslog, or the console if
debugging or verbosity is enabled.
- --no-client
- Do not create a config client. This will cause the daemon
to run without ever checking for its configuration automatically, and only
makes sense when puppet agent is being run with listen = true in
puppet.conf or was started with the --listen option.
- --noop
- Use ´noop´ mode where the daemon runs in a no-op
or dry-run mode. This is useful for seeing what changes Puppet will make
without actually executing the changes.
- --onetime
- Run the configuration once. Runs a single (normally
daemonized) Puppet run. Useful for interactively running puppet agent when
used in conjunction with the --no-daemonize option.
- --serve
- Start another type of server. By default, ´puppet
agent´ will start a service handler that allows authenticated and
authorized remote nodes to trigger the configuration to be pulled down and
applied. You can specify any handler here that does not require
configuration, e.g., filebucket, ca, or resource. The handlers are in
´lib/puppet/network/handler´, and the names must match exactly,
both in the call to ´serve´ and in
´namespaceauth.conf´.
- --test
- Enable the most common options used for testing. These are
´onetime´, ´verbose´, ´ignorecache´,
´no-daemonize´, ´no-usecacheonfailure´,
´detailed-exit-codes´, ´no-splay´, and
´show_diff´.
- --verbose
- Turn on verbose reporting.
- --version
- Print the puppet version number and exit.
- --waitforcert
- This option only matters for daemons that do not yet have
certificates and it is enabled by default, with a value of 120 (seconds).
This causes ´puppet agent´ to connect to the server every 2
minutes and ask it to sign a certificate request. This is useful for the
initial setup of a puppet client. You can turn off waiting for
certificates by specifying a time of 0.
EXAMPLE¶
$ puppet agent --server puppet.domain.com
DIAGNOSTICS¶
Puppet agent accepts the following signals:
- SIGHUP
- Restart the puppet agent daemon.
- SIGINT and SIGTERM
- Shut down the puppet agent daemon.
- SIGUSR1
- Immediately retrieve and apply configurations from the
puppet master.
AUTHOR¶
Luke Kanies
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (c) 2011 Puppet Labs, LLC Licensed under the Apache 2.0 License