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(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.
USAGE
puppet agent [--certname NAME] [-D|--daemonize|--no-daemonize]
[-d|--debug] [--detailed-exitcodes] [--digest DIGEST] [--disable [MES-
SAGE]] [--enable] [--fingerprint] [-h|--help] [-l|--logdest sys-
log|eventlog|ABS FILEPATH|console] [--serverport PORT] [--noop]
[-o|--onetime] [--sourceaddress IP_ADDRESS] [-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 configu-
ration and apply it.
USAGE NOTES
'puppet agent' does its best to find a compromise between interactive
use and daemon use. If you run it with no arguments and no configura-
tion, it goes into the background, attempts to get a signed certifi-
cate, and retrieves and applies its configuration every 30 minutes.
Some flags are meant specifically for interactive use --- in particu-
lar, '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 fol-
lowing exit codes:
o 0: The run succeeded with no changes or failures; the system was
already in the desired state.
o 1: The run failed, or wasn't attempted due to another run already
in progress.
o 2: The run succeeded, and some resources were changed.
o 4: The run succeeded, and some resources failed.
o 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 def-
inition names that contain them, and you can use the 'tags' flag to
specify one of these names, causing only configuration elements con-
tained within that class or definition to be applied. This is very use-
ful when you are testing new configurations --- for instance, if you
are just starting to manage 'ntpd', you would put all of the new ele-
ments 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 certifi-
cate (or certificate request) fingerprint. Providing the '--digest'
option allows to use a different digest algorithm to generate the fin-
gerprint. 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-mid-
dle 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. Val-
ues must be comma-separated.
OPTIONS
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 set-
tings accept a '--no-' prefix to turn off a behavior, translating into
'--setting' and '--no-setting' pairs, such as --daemonize and --no-dae-
monize.
See the configuration file documentation at https://pup-
pet.com/docs/puppet/latest/configuration.html for the full list of
acceptable settings. A commented list of all settings can also be gen-
erated by running puppet agent with '--genconfig'.
o --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 configura-
tions the node will receive. Use this option to debug setup prob-
lems or implement unusual node identification schemes. (This is a
Puppet setting, and can go in puppet.conf.)
o --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.)
o --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.)
o --debug: Enable full debugging.
o --detailed-exitcodes: Provide extra information about the run via
exit codes; works only if '--test' or '--onetime' is also speci-
fied. 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.
o --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.
o --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.
o --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.
o --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.)
o --fingerprint: Display the current certificate or certificate sign-
ing request fingerprint and then exit. Use the '--digest' option to
change the digest algorithm used.
o --help: Print this help message
o --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.
o --logdest: Where to send log messages. Choose between 'syslog' (the
POSIX syslog service), 'eventlog' (the Windows Event Log), 'con-
sole', 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 des-
tinations 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.
o --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.)
o --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 bool-
ean settings on the command line.)
o --onetime: Run the configuration once. Runs a single (normally dae-
monized) 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.)
o --serverport: The port on which to contact the Puppet Server. (This
is a Puppet setting, and can go in puppet.conf.)
o --sourceaddress: Set the source IP address for transactions. This
defaults to automatically selected. (This is a Puppet setting, and
can go in puppet.conf.)
o --test: Enable the most common options used for testing. These are
'onetime', 'verbose', 'no-daemonize', 'no-usecacheonfailure',
'detailed-exitcodes', 'no-splay', and 'show_diff'.
o --trace Prints stack traces on some errors. (This is a Puppet set-
ting, and can go in puppet.conf. Note the special 'no-' prefix for
boolean settings on the command line.)
o --verbose: Turn on verbose reporting.
o --version: Print the puppet version number and exit.
o --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 Pup-
pet setting, and can go in puppet.conf.)
o --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.)
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
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2011 Puppet Inc., LLC Licensed under the Apache 2.0
License
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+---------------+--------------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+--------------------------+
|Availability | system/management/puppet |
+---------------+--------------------------+
|Stability | Volatile |
+---------------+--------------------------+
NOTES
Source code for open source software components in Oracle Solaris can
be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source-
code-downloads.html.
This software was built from source available at
https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland. The original community
source was downloaded from https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppet.
Further information about this software can be found on the open source
community website at http://puppetlabs.com/.
Puppet, Inc. January 2022 PUPPET-AGENT(8)