puppet-agent(8) - phpMan

PUPPET-AGENT(8) Puppet manual PUPPET-AGENT(8)

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.

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/sta-
ble/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 identify-
ing 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 set-
up 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 fail-
ures.

--digest
Change the certificate fingerprinting digest algorithm. The default is SHA256.
Valid values depends on the version of OpenSSL installed, but will likely contain
MD5, MD2, SHA1 and SHA256.

--disable
Disable working on the local system. This puts a lock file in place, causing 'pup-
pet 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.

Disable can also take an optional message that will be reported by the 'puppet
agent' at the next disabled run.

'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 start but not check
configuration unless it is triggered with puppet kick. This 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-dae-
monize option.

--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.

SIGUSR2
Close file descriptors for log files and reopen them. Used with logrotate.

AUTHOR
Luke Kanies

Puppet Labs, LLC January 2013 PUPPET-AGENT(8)

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