Table of Contents

1. AUTOMATED SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION
2. Overview

2.1 What is cfengine and who can use it?
2.2 Site configuration
2.3 Key Concepts

2.3.1 Control files
2.3.2 Network interface
2.3.3 Network File System (NFS) or distribution?
2.3.4 Name servers (DNS)
2.3.5 Monitoring important files
2.3.6 Making links

2.4 Functionality

3. Getting started

3.1 What you must have in a cfengine program
3.2 Program structure
3.3 Optional features in cfengine
3.4 Invoking cfengine
3.5 CFINPUTS environment variable
3.6 What to aim for

4. More advanced concepts

4.1 Classes
4.2 Variable substitution
4.3 Undefined variables
4.4 Defining classes and making exceptions

4.4.1 Command line classes
4.4.2 actionsequence classes
4.4.3 shellcommand classes
4.4.4 Feedback classes
4.4.5 Writing plugin modules

4.5 The generic class any
4.6 Debugging tips
4.7 Access control
4.8 Wildcards in directory names
4.9 Recursive file sweeps/directory traversals
4.10 Log files written by cfengine
4.11 Quoted strings
4.12 Regular expressions
4.13 Iterating over lists

5. Designing a global system configuration

5.1 General considerations
5.2 Using netgroups
5.3 Files and links
5.4 Copying files
5.5 Managing processes
5.6 Cfengine's model for NFS-mounted filesystems

5.6.1 NFS filesystem resources
5.6.2 Unique filesystem mountpoints
5.6.3 How does it work?
5.6.4 Special variables
5.6.5 Example programs for mounting resources

5.7 Using the automounter
5.8 Editing Files
5.9 Disabling and the file repository
5.10 Running user scripts
5.11 Compressing old log files
5.12 Managing ACLs

6. Using cfengine as a front end for cron

6.1 Structuring `cfengine.conf'
6.2 Splaying host times
6.3 Building flexible time classes
6.4 Choosing a scheduling interval

7. Cfengine and network services

7.1 Cfengine network services
7.2 How it works

7.2.1 Remote file distribution
7.2.2 Remote execution of cfengine
7.2.3 cfrun
7.2.4 Spamming and security
7.2.5 Some points on the cfd protocol
7.2.6 Deadlocks and runaway loops

7.3 Configuring cfd

7.3.1 Installation of cfd
7.3.2 Configuration file `cfd.conf'
7.3.3 TCP wrappers

8. Security and cfengine

8.1 Security hints
8.2 Checksum Databases
8.3 Whom do you trust?
8.4 Firewalls

Variable Index
Concept Index
FAQ Index