puppet-agent - The puppet agent daemon
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.
puppet agent [--certname NAME]
[-D|--daemonize|--no-daemonize] [-d|--debug] [--detailed-exitcodes]
[--digest DIGEST] [--disable [MESSAGE]] [--enable] [--fingerprint]
[-h|--help] [-l|--logdest syslog|eventlog|ABS FILEPATH|console]
[--serverport PORT] [--noop] [-o|--onetime] [--sourceaddress
IP_ADDRESS] [-t|--test] [-v|--verbose] [-V|--version]
[-w|--waitforcert SECONDS]
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.
'puppet agent' does its best to find a compromise between
interactive use and daemon use. If you run it with no arguments and no
configuration, it goes into the background, attempts to get a signed
certificate, and retrieves and applies its configuration every 30
minutes.
Some flags are meant specifically for interactive use -- in
particular, 'test', 'tags' and 'fingerprint' are useful.
'--test' runs once in the foreground with verbose logging, then
exits. It also exits if it can't get a valid catalog. --test includes
the '--detailed-exitcodes' option by default and exits with one of the
following exit codes:
- ○
- 0: The run succeeded with no changes or failures; the system was already
in the desired state.
- ○
- 1: The run failed, or wasn't attempted due to another run already in
progress.
- ○
- 2: The run succeeded, and some resources were changed.
- ○
- 4: The run succeeded, and some resources failed.
- ○
- 6: The run succeeded, and included both changes and failures.
-
'--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'
runs once and displays on the console (and in the log) the current
certificate (or certificate request) fingerprint. Providing the '--digest'
option allows you 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).
'--skip_tags' is a flag used to filter resources. If this is set,
then only resources not tagged with the specified tags will be applied.
Values must be comma-separated.
Note that any Puppet setting that's valid in the configuration
file is also a valid long argument. For example, 'server' is a valid
setting, so you can specify '--server servername' as an argument.
Boolean settings accept a '--no-' prefix to turn off a behavior, translating
into '--setting' and '--no-setting' pairs, such as --daemonize and
--no-daemonize.
See the configuration file documentation at
https://puppet.com/docs/puppet/latest/configuration.html for the full list
of acceptable settings. A commented list of all settings 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. (This is a Puppet setting, and can go in
puppet.conf.)
- ○
- --daemonize: Send the process into the background. This is the default.
(This is a Puppet setting, and can go in puppet.conf. Note the special
'no-' prefix for boolean settings on the command line.)
- ○
- --no-daemonize: Do not send the process into the background. (This is a
Puppet setting, and can go in puppet.conf. Note the special 'no-' prefix
for boolean settings on the command line.)
- ○
- --debug: Enable full debugging.
- ○
- --detailed-exitcodes: Provide extra information about the run via exit
codes; works only if '--test' or '--onetime' is also specified. If
enabled, 'puppet agent' uses the following exit codes:
- 0: The run succeeded with no changes or failures; the system was already
in the desired state.
- 1: The run failed, or wasn't attempted due to another run already in
progress.
- 2: The run succeeded, and some resources were changed.
- 4: The run succeeded, and some resources failed.
- 6: The run succeeded, and included both changes and failures.
- ○
- --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 '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.
- 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 However,
it continues to use its normal scheduling, so it might not start for
another half hour.
- 'puppet agent' exits after executing this.
- ○
- --evaltrace: Logs each resource as it is being evaluated. This allows you
to interactively see exactly what is being done. (This is a Puppet
setting, and can go in puppet.conf. Note the special 'no-' prefix for
boolean settings on the command line.)
- ○
- --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
- ○
- --job-id: Attach the specified job id to the catalog request and the
report used for this agent run. This option only works when '--onetime' is
used. When using Puppet Enterprise this flag should not be used as the
orchestrator sets the job-id for you and it must be unique.
- ○
- --logdest: Where to send log messages. Choose between 'syslog' (the POSIX
syslog service), 'eventlog' (the Windows Event Log), 'console', or the
path to a log file. If debugging or verbosity is enabled, this defaults to
'console'. Otherwise, it defaults to 'syslog' on POSIX systems and
'eventlog' on Windows. Multiple destinations can be set using a comma
separated list (eg: /path/file1,console,/path/file2)"
- A path ending with '.json' will receive structured output in JSON format.
The log file will not have an ending ']' automatically written to it due
to the appending nature of logging. It must be appended manually to make
the content valid JSON.
- A path ending with '.jsonl' will receive structured output in JSON Lines
format.
- ○
- --masterport: The port on which to contact the Puppet Server. (This is a
Puppet setting, and can go in puppet.conf. Deprecated in favor of the
'serverport' setting.)
- ○
- --noop: Use 'noop' mode where the daemon runs in a no-op or dry-run mode.
This is useful for seeing what changes Puppet would make without actually
executing the changes. (This is a Puppet setting, and can go in
puppet.conf. Note the special 'no-' prefix for boolean settings on the
command line.)
- ○
- --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. (This is a Puppet setting, and
can go in puppet.conf. Note the special 'no-' prefix for boolean settings
on the command line.)
- ○
- --serverport: The port on which to contact the Puppet Server. (This is a
Puppet setting, and can go in puppet.conf.)
- ○
- --sourceaddress: Set the source IP address for transactions. This defaults
to automatically selected. (This is a Puppet setting, and can go in
puppet.conf.)
- ○
- --test: Enable the most common options used for testing. These are
'onetime', 'verbose', 'no-daemonize', 'no-usecacheonfailure',
'detailed-exitcodes', 'no-splay', and 'show_diff'.
- ○
- --trace Prints stack traces on some errors. (This is a Puppet setting, and
can go in puppet.conf. Note the special 'no-' prefix for boolean settings
on the command line.)
- ○
- --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. (This is a Puppet setting, and can go in
puppet.conf.)
- ○
- --write_catalog_summary After compiling the catalog saves the resource
list and classes list to the node in the state directory named classes.txt
and resources.txt (This is a Puppet setting, and can go in
puppet.conf.)
-
$ puppet agent --server puppet.domain.com
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.
Copyright (c) 2011 Puppet Inc., LLC Licensed under the Apache 2.0
License