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GNU cfengine

1.4 Functionality

The notes above give you a rough idea of what cfengine can be used for. Here is a summary of cfagent's capabilities.

• Check and configure the network interface.

• Edit textfiles for the system and for all users.

• Make and maintain symbolic links, including multiple links from a single command.

• Check and set the permissions and ownership of files.

• Tidy (delete) junk files which clutter the system.

• Systematic, automated mounting of NFS filesystems.

• Checking for the presence of important files and filesystems.

• Controlled execution of user scripts and shell commands.

• Cfengine follows a class-based decision structure.

• Process management.

How do you run cfagent? You can run it as a cron job, or you can run it manually. You may run cfagent scripts/programs as often as you like. Each time you run a script, the engine determines whether anything needs to be done -- if nothing needs to be done, nothing is done! If you use it to monitor and configure your entire network from a central file-base, then the natural thing is to run cfengine repeatedly with the help of cron and/or cfexecd.