Cfengine-Reference

• Reference introduction:
• Cfkey:
• Cfagent reference:
• Cfservd.conf and cfrun reference:
• Cfexecd reference:
• Problem solving:
• Example configuration file:
• Variable Index:
• Concept Index:
• FAQ Index:

Inroduction to reference manual

The purpose of the cfengine reference manual is to collect together and document the raw facts about the different components of cfengine. Once you have become proficient in the use of cfengine, you will no longer have need of the tutorial. The reference manual, on the other hand, changes with each version of cfengine. You will be able to use it online, or in printed form to find out the details you require to implement configurations in practice.

• Installation:
• Work directory:
• Hard classes:
• Evaluated classes:
• Filenames and paths:

Installation

In order to install cfengine, you should first ensure that the following packages are installed.

OpenSSL                   http://www.openssl.org
Berkeley DB 3.2 or later  http://www.sleepycat.com

The preferred method of installation is then

tar zxf cfengine-x.x.x.tar.gz
cd cfengine-x.x.x
./configure
make
make install

This results in binaries being installed in /usr/local/sbin. Since this is not necessarily a local file system on all hosts, users are encouraged to keep local copies of the binaries on each host, inside the cfengine trusted work directory.

Work directory

In order to achieve the desired simplifications, it was decided to reserve a private work area for the cfengine tool-set. In cfengine 1.x, the administrator could choose the locations of configuration files, locks, and logging data independently. In cfengine 2.x, this diversity has been rationalized to a single directory which defaults to /var/cfengine (by analogy with /var/cron):

/var/cfengine
/var/cfengine/bin
/var/cfengine/inputs
/var/cfengine/outputs

The installation location /usr/local/sbin is not necessarily a local file system, and cannot therefore be trusted i) to be present, and ii) to be authentic on an arbitrary system.

Similarly, a trusted cache of the input files must now be maintained in the inputs sub-directory. When cfengine is invoked by the scheduler, it reads only from this directory. It is up to the user to keep this cache updated, on each host. This simplifies and consolidates the cfengine resources in a single place. The environment variable CFINPUTS still overrides this default location, as before, but in its absence or when called from the scheduler, this becomes the location of trusted files. A special configuration file cf.update is parsed and run before the main configuration is parsed, which is used to ensure that the currently caches policy is up-to-date. If no value is set for CFINPUTS, then the default location is the trusted cfengine directory /var/cfengine/inputs.

The outputs directory is now a record of spooled run-reports. These are mailed to the administrator, as previously, or can be copied to another central location and viewed in an alternative browser..

Cfengine hard classes

A single class can be one of several things:

• The name of an operating system architecture e.g. ultrix, sun4 etc. This is referred to henceforth as a hard class.
• The (unqualified) name of a particular host. If your system returns a fully qualified domain name for your host, cfagent truncates it so as to unqualify the name.
• The name of a user-defined group of hosts.
• A day of the week (in the form Monday Tuesday Wednesday..).
• An hour of the day (in the form Hr00, Hr01 ... Hr23).
• Minutes in the hour (in the form Min00, Min17 ... Min45).
• A five minute interval in the hour (in the form Min00_05, Min05_10 ... Min55_00)
• A day of the month (in the form Day1 ... Day31).
• A month (in the form January, February, ... December).
• A year (in the form Yr1997, Yr2001).
• An arbitrary user-defined string. (see the reference manual).
• The ip-address octets of any active interface, in the form (ipv4_192_0_0_1, ipv4_192_0_0,ipv4_192_0,ipv4_192).

To see all of the classes define on a particular host, run

host# cfagent -p -v

Evaluated classes

Cfengine provides a number of in-built functions for evaluating classes, based on file tests. Using these internal functions is quicker than calling the shell test function. The time functions place their arguments in chronological order.

IsNewerThan(f1,f2)

True if file 2 is modified more recently than file 1. (mtime)

AccessedBefore(f1,f2)

True if file 1 had its last access earlier than file 2 (atime)

ChangedBefore(f1,f2)

True if file 1's attributes were changed in any way before file 2's (ctime).

FileExists(file)

True if the named file object exists.

IPRange(address-range)

True if the current host lies within the specified range

IsDir(f)

True if the named file object is a directory.

IsLink(f)

True if the named file object is a symbolic link.

IsPlain(f)

True if the named file object is a plain file.

ReturnsZero(command)

True if the named shell command returns with exit code zero (okay).

For example:

classes:

 access_to_dir = ( ReturnsZero(/bin/cd /mydir) )
 compare       = ( ChangedBefore(/etc/passwd_master,/etc/passwd) )
 isplain       = ( IsPlain(/tmp/import) )
 inrange       = ( IPRange(128.39.89.10-15) )
 CIDR          = ( IPRange(128.39.89.10/24) )

Filenames and paths

Filenames in Unix-lik operating systems

The directory separator is the forward slash '/' character. All references to file locations must be absolute names in cfengine, i.e. they must begin with a complete specification of which directory they are in. For example:

/etc/passwd
/usr/local/masterfiles/distfile

The only place where it makes sense to refer to a file without a complete directory specification is when searching through directories for different kinds of file, e.g.

tidy:

  /home/user pattern=core age=0 recurse=inf

Here, one can write core without a path, because one is looking for any file of that name in a number of directories.

Cfengine was implemented primarily on Unix-like operating systems, but has since been ported to Windows operating systems and MacOS X. The Windows operating systems traditionally use a different filename convention. The following are all valid absolute file names under Windows:

 c:\winnt
 c:/winnt
 /var/cfengine/inputs
 //fileserver/share2\dir

\var\cfengine\inputs

• Cfagent reference:
• Cfservd.conf and cfrun reference:
• Cfexecd reference:
• Problem solving:
• Example configuration file:
• Variable Index:
• Concept Index:
• FAQ Index:

Cfkey reference

The very first thing you should do on every host is to establish a public-private key pair. To do this, you need to run the program

everyhost# cfkey

on every host. This program needs to produce random numbers, and needs a source of randomness. A good strategy is to install and run the cfenvd program for a week or two in advance of deploying cfengine 2, since cfenvd collects random events, which are an excellent source of entropy for random number generation.

If you get the error message "PRNG not seeded", it means that insufficient data were found in order to make a random key. In that case, run cfenvd for a few days more and try again.

• Cfagent reference:
• Cfservd.conf and cfrun reference:
• Cfexecd reference:
• Problem solving:
• Example configuration file:
• Variable Index:
• Concept Index:
• FAQ Index:

Cfagent reference

• Cfagent intro:
• Special variables:
• Cfengine classes:
• acl:
• binservers:
• broadcast:
• control:
• classes:
• copy:
• defaultroute:
• disks:
• directories:
• disable:
• editfiles:
• files:
• filters:
• groups:
• homeservers:
• ignore:
• import:
• interfaces:
• links:
• mailserver:
• miscmounts:
• mountables:
• processes:
• required:
• resolve:
• shellcommands:
• tidy:
• unmount:

Cfagent intro

• The file cfagent.conf:
• Cfagent Runtime Options:

The file cfagent.conf

 control:

   classes::

       domain = ( DNS-domain-name )

 classes:

   Class/Group definitions

 import:

   Files to import

 # other items

Cfagent runtime options

Note that GNU long options are available with the syntax --longoption. The long names are given in brackets.

-a

(--sysadm) Print only the name of the system administrator then quit.

-A

(--auto) Can be used to signify an automatic run of cfengine, as opposed to a manual run. The distinction is not predetermined. Use of this option currently causes cfengine to ignore locks. This option is reserved for future development.

-b

(--force-net-copy) Normally cfengine detects attempts to copy from a server via the network, if they loop back to the localhost. It then avoids using the network to make the copy. This option forces cfengine to copy using the network. (Yes, someone thinks this is useful!)

-c

(--no-check-files) Do not check file systems for ownership / permissions etc.

-C

(--no-check-mounts) Check mount points for consistency. If this option is specified then directories which lie in the "mount point" area are checked to see whether there is anything mounted on them. Normally this is off since not all machines use mounted file systems in the same way. e.g. HPUX does not generally operate with partitions, but nevertheless one might wish to mimick a partition-like environment there, but it would be irritating to be informed that nothing was mounted on the mount point.

-d

(--debug) Enable debugging output. Normally you will want to send this to a file using the shell script command or a pipe. -d1 shows only parsing output. -d2 shows only runtime action output. -d0 shows both levels. Debugging ouput is intended mainly for the author's convenience and is not a supported feature. The details of this output may change at any time.

-D

(--define) Define a compound class symbol of the form alpha.beta.gamma.

-e

(--no-edits) Suppress file editing.

-E

(--enforce-links) Globally force links to be created where plain files or links already exist. Since this option is a big hammer, you have to use it in interactive mode and answer a yes/no query before cfengine will run like this.

-f

(--file) Parse filename after this switch. By default cfengine looks for a file called cfengine.conf in the current directory.

-h

(--help) Help information. Display version banner and options summary.

-H

(--no-hard-classes). Prevents cfengine from generating any internal class name information. Can be used for emulation purposes.

-i

(--no-ifconfig) Do not attempt to configure the local area network interface.

-I

(--inform) Switches on the inform output level, whereby cfengine reports everything it changes..

-k

(--no-copy) Do not copy/image any files.

-K

(--no-lock) Ignore locks when running.

-l

(--traverse-links) Normally cfengine does not follow symbolic links when recursively parsing directories. This option will force it to do so.

-L

(--delete-stale-links) Delete links which do not point to existing files (except in user home directories, which are not touched).

-m

(--no-mount) Do not attempt to mount file systems or edit the filesystem table.

-M

(--no-modules) Ignore modules in actionsequence.

-n

(--recon,--dry-run,--just-print) No action. Only print what has to be done without actually doing it.

-N

(--negate,--undefine) Cancel a set of classes, or undefine (set value to false) a compound class of the form alpha.beta.gamma.

-p

(--parse-only) Parse file and then stop. Used for checking the syntax of a program. You do not have to be superuser to use this option.

-q

(--no-splay) Switch off host splaying (sleeping).

-s

(--no-commands) Do not execute scripts or shell commands.

-S

(--silent) Silence run time warnings.

-t

(--no-tidy) Do not tidy file systems.

-u

(--use-env) Causes cfengine to generate an environment variable CFALLCLASSES which can be read by child processes (scripts). This variable contains a summary of all the currently defined classes at any given time. This option causes some system 5 systems to generate a Bus Error or segmentation fault. The same information is available from the cfengine internal variable $(allclasses) and can be passed as a parameter to scripts.

-U

(--underscore-classes). When this option is set, cfengine adds an underscore to the beginning of the hard system classes (like _sun4, _linux etc. The longer compound classes are not underscored, since these are already complex and would unlikely result in collisions.) This can be used to avoid naming conflicts if you are so unjudicious as to name a host by the name of a hard class. Other classes are not affected.

-v

(--verbose) Verbose mode. Prints detailed information about actions and state.

-V

(--version) Print only the version string and then quit.

-x

(--no-preconf) Do not execute the cf.preconf net configuration file.

-X

(--no-links) Do not execute the links section of a program.

-w

(--no-warn,--quiet) Do not print warning messages.

-z

(--smtp) Print the SMTP server for the LAN (used by cfexecd).

Special variables

Variables are referred to in either of two different ways, depending on your taste. You can use the forms $(variable) or ${variable}. The variable in braces or parentheses can be the name of any user defined macro, environment variable or one of the following special internal variables.

AllClasses

A long string in the form CFALLCLASSES=class1:class2.... This variable is a summary of all the defined classes at any given time. It is always kept up to date so that scripts can make use of cfengine's class data.

arch

The current detailed architecture string--an amalgamation of the information from uname. Non-definable.

binserver

The default server for binary data. Non definable.

ChecksumDatabase

If set to the name of a file, cfagent will use this to store checksums of important files, and give `tripwire functionality', See ChecksumDatabase.

ChecksumUpdates

If set to `on', security information is automatically updated, See ChecksumUpdates.

class

The currently defined system hard-class (e.g. sun4, hpux). Non-definable.

date

The current date string. Note that if you use this in a shell command it might be interpreted as a list variable, since it contains the default separator :.

domain

The currently defined domain.

faculty

The faculty or site as defined in control (see site).

fqhost

The fully qualified (DNS/BIND) hostname of the system, which includes the domain name as well.

host

The hostname of the machine running the program.

ipaddress

The numerical form of the internet address of the host currently running cfengine.

MaxCfengines

The maximum number of cfengines which should be allowed to co-exist concurrently on the system. This can prevent excessive load due to unintentional spamming in situations where several cfengines are started independently. The default value is unlimited.

ostype

A short for of $(arch).

OutputPrefix

This quoted string can be used to change the default `cfengine:' prefix on output lines to something else. You might wish to shorten the string, or have a different prefix for different hosts. The value in this variable is appended with the name of the host. The default is equivalent to,

  OutputPrefix = ( "cfengine:$(host):")

RepChar

The character value of the string used by the file repository in constructing unique filenames from path names. This is the character which replaces / (see the reference manual).

site

This variable is identical to $(faculty) and may be used interchangeably.

split

The character on which list variables are split (see the reference manual).

sysadm

The name or mail address of the system administrator.

timezone

The current timezone as defined in control.

UnderscoreClasses

If this is set to `on' cfengine uses hard-classes which begin with an underscore, so as to avoid name collisions. See also Runtime Options in the Reference manual.

year

The current year.

These variables are kept special because they play a special role in setting up a system configuration. You are encouraged to use them to define fully generalized rules in your programs. Variables can be used to advantage in defining filenames, directory names and in passing arguments to shell commands. The judicious use of variables can reduce many definitions to a single one if you plan carefully.

NOTE: the above control variables are not case sensitive, unlike user macros, so you should not define your own macros with these names.

The following variables are also reserved and may be used to produce troublesome special characters in strings.

cr

Expands to the carriage-return character.

dblquote

Expands to a double quote "

dollar

Expands to $.

lf

Expands to a line-feed character (Unix end of line).

n

Expands to a newline character.

quote

Expands to a single quote '.

spc

Expands simply to a single space. This can be used to place spaces in filenames etc.

tab

Expands to a single tab character.

Cfengine classes

A cfengine action looks like this:

action-type:

   compound-class::

       declaration

A single class can be one of several things:

• The name of an operating system architecture e.g. ultrix, sun4 etc. This is referred to henceforth as a hard class.
• The (unqualified) name of a particular host. If your system returns a fully qualified domain name for your host, cfagent truncates it so as to unqualify the name.
• The name of a user-defined group of hosts.
• A day of the week (in the form Monday Tuesday Wednesday..).
• An hour of the day (in the form Hr00, Hr01 ... Hr23).
• Minutes in the hour (in the form Min00, Min17 ... Min45).
• A five minute interval in the hour (in the form Min00_05, Min05_10 ... Min55_00)
• A quart hour (in the form Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4)
• An abbreviated time with quarter hour specified (in the form Hr00_Q1, Hr23_Q4 etc.)
• A day of the month (in the form Day1 ... Day31).
• A month (in the form January, February, ... December).
• A year (in the form Yr1997, Yr2001).
• An arbitrary user-defined string. (see the reference manual).
• The ip-address octets of any active interface, in the form (ipv4_192_0_0_1, ipv4_192_0_0,ipv4_192_0,ipv4_192).

A compound class is a sequence of simple classes connected by dots or `pipe' symbols (vertical bars). For example:

myclass.sun4.Monday::

sun4|ultrix|osf::

A compound class evaluates to `true' if all of the individual classes are separately true, thus in the above example the actions which follow compound_class:: are only carried out if the host concerned is in myclass, is of type sun4 and the day is Monday! In the second example, the host parsing the file must be either of type sun4 or ultrix or osf. In other words, compound classes support two operators: AND and OR, written . and | respectively. Cfengine doesn't care how many of these operators you use (since it skips over blank class names), so you could write either

solaris|irix::

or

solaris||irix::

depending on your taste. On the other hand, the order in which cfengine evaluates AND and OR operations does matter, and the rule is that AND takes priority over OR, so that . binds classes together tightly and all AND operations are evaluated before ORing the final results together. This is the usual behaviour in programming languages. You can use round parentheses in cfengine classes to override these preferences.

Cfengine allows you to define switch on and off dummy classes so that you can use them to select certain subsets of action. In particular, note that by defining your own classes, using them to make compound rules of this type, and then switching them on and off, you can also switch on and off the corresponding actions in a controlled way. The command line options -D and -N can be used for this purpose. See also addclasses in the Reference manual.

A logical NOT operator has been added to allow you to exclude certain specific hosts in a more flexible way. The logical NOT operator is (as in C and C++) !. For instance, the following example would allow all hosts except for myhost:

   action:

    !myhost::

        command

and similarly, so allow all hosts in a user-defined group mygroup, except for myhost, you would write

   action:

    mygroup.!myhost::

        command

which reads `mygroup AND NOT myhost'. The NOT operator can also be combined with OR. For instance

   class1|!class2

would select hosts which were either in class 1, or those which were not in class 2.

Finally, there is a number of reserved classes. The following are hard classes for various operating system architectures. They do not need to be defined because each host knows what operating system it is running. Thus the appropriate one of these will always be defined on each host. Similarly the day of the week is clearly not open to definition, unless you are running cfengine from outer space. The reserved classes are:

ultrix, sun4, sun3, hpux, hpux10, aix, solaris, osf, irix4, irix, irix64
   sco, freebsd, netbsd, openbsd, bsd4_3, newsos, solarisx86, aos,
          nextstep, bsdos, linux, debian, cray, unix_sv, GnU, NT

If these classes are not sufficient to distinguish the hosts on your network, cfengine provides more specific classes which contain the name and release of the operating system. To find out what these look like for your systems you can run cfengine in `parse-only-verbose' mode:

  cfagent -p -v

and these will be displayed. For example, solaris 2.4 systems generate the additional classes sunos_5_4 and sunos_sun4m, sunos_sun4m_5_4.

Cfengine uses both the unqualified and fully host names as classes. Some sites and operating systems use fully qualified names for their hosts. i.e. uname -n returns to full domain qualified hostname. This spoils the class matching algorithms for cfengine, so cfengine automatically truncates names which contain a dot `.' at the first `.' it encounters. If your hostnames contain dots (which do not refer to a domain name, then cfengine will be confused. The moral is: don't have dots in your host names! NOTE: in order to ensure that the fully qualified name of the host becomes a class you must define the domain variable. The dots in this string will be replaced by underscores.

In summary, the operator ordering in cfengine classes is as follows:

()

Parentheses override everything.

!

The NOT operator binds tightest.

.

The AND operator binds more tightly than OR.

|

OR is the weakest operator.

acl

   acl:

      class::

         { acl-alias

         action
         }

Cfengine's ACL feature is a common interface for managing filesystem access control lists (ACLs). An access control list is an extended file permission. It allows you to open or close a file to a named list of users (without having to create a group for those users); similarly, it allows you to open or close a file for a list of groups. Several operating systems have access control lists, but each typically has a different syntax and different user interface to this facility, making it very awkward to use. This part of a cfengine configuration simplifies the management of ACLs by providing a more convenient user interface for controlling them and--as far as possible--a common syntax.

An ACL may, by its very nature, contain a lot of information. Normally you would set ACLs in a files command, See files, or a copy command, See copy. It would be too cumbersome to repeat all of the information in every command in your configuration, so cfengine simplifies this by first associating an alias together with a complex list of ACL information. This alias is then used to represent the whole bundle of ACL entries in a files or copy command. The form of an ACL is similar to the form of an editfiles command. It is a bundle of information concerning a file's permissions.

 { acl-alias

  method:overwrite/append
  fstype:posix/solaris/dfs/afs/hpux/nt

  acl_type:user/group:permissions
  acl_type:user/group:permissions
  ...
 }

The name acl-alias can be any identifier containing alphanumeric characters and underscores. This is what you will use to refer to the ACL entries in practice. The method entry tells cfengine how to interpret the entries: should a file's ACLs be overwritten or only adjusted? Since the filesystems from different developers all use different models for ACLs, you must also tell cfengine what kind of filesystem the file resides on. Currently only solaris and DCE/DFS ACLs are implemented.

NOTE: if you set both file permissions and ACLs the file permissions override the ACLs.

• ACEs:
• Solaris ACLs:
• DFS ACLs:
• NT ACLs:
• ACL Example:

Access control entries

An access control list is build of any number of individual access control entries (ACEs). The ACEs has the following general syntax:

    acl_type:user/group:permissions

The user or group is sometimes referred to as a key.

For an explanation of ACL types and their use, refer to your local manual page. However, note that for each type of filesystem, there are certain entries which must exist in an ACL. If you are creating a new ACL from scratch, you must specify these. For example, in solaris ACLs you must have entries for user, group and other. Under DFS you need what DFS calls a user_obj, group_obj and an other_obj, and in some cases mask_obj. In cfengine syntax these are called user:*:, other:*: and mask:*:, as described below. If you are appending to an existing entry, you do not have to re-specify these unless you want to change them.

Cfengine can overwrite (replace) or append to one or more ACL entries.

overwrite

method:overwrite is the default. This sets the ACL according to the specified entries which follow. The existing ACL will be overwritten completely.

append

method:append adds or modifies one or more specified ACL entries. If an entry already exists for the specified type and user/group, the specified permission bits will be added to the old permissions. If there is no ACL entry for the given type and user/group, a new entry will be appended.

If the new ACL exactly matches the existing ACL, the ACL is not replaced.

The individual bits in an ACE may be either added subtracted or set equal to a specified mask. The + symbol means add, the - symbol subtract and = means set equal to. Here are some examples:

  acltype:id/*:mask

  user:mark:+rx,-w
  user:ds:=r
  user:jacobs:noaccess
  user:forgiven:default

  user:*:rw
  group:*:r
  other:*:r

The keyword noaccess means set all access bits to zero for that user, i.e. remove all permissions. The keyword default means remove the named user from the access crontrol list altogether, so that the default permissions apply. A star/asterisk in the centre field indicates that the user or group ID is implicitly specified as of the owner of the file, or that no ID is applicable at all (as is the case for `other').

Solaris ACLs

Under Solaris, the ACL type can be one of the following:

        user
        group
        mask
        other
        default_user
        default_group
        default_mask
        default_other

A user or group can be specified to the user, group, default_user and default_group types. Solaris ACL permissions are the normal UNIX permissions bits rwx, where:

    
        r - Grants read privileges.
        w - Grants write privileges.
        x - Grants execute privileges.

DFS ACLs

In DCE, the ACL type can be one of the following:

        other
        mask
        any
        unauthenticated
        user
        group
        foreign_other
        foreign_user
        foreign_group

The user, group, foreign_user and foreign_group types require that you specify a user or group. The DCE documentation refers to types user_obj, group_obj and so on. In the cfengine implementation, the ugly _obj suffix has been dropped to make these more in keeping with the POSIX names. user_obj::, is equivalent to user:*: is cfengine. The star/asterisk implies that the ACL applies to the owner of the file object.

DFS permissions are comprised of the bits crwxid, where:

        c - Grants control privileges, to modify an acl.
        r - Grants read  privileges.
        w - Grants write privileges.
        x - Grants execute privileges.
        i - Grants insert privileges.
        d - Grants delete privileges.

See the DCE/DFS documentation for more information about this.

It is not possible to set ACLs in foreign cells currently using cfengine, but you can still have all of your ACL definitions in the same file. You must however arrange for the file to be executed on the server for the cell concerned. Note also that you must perform a DCE login (normally as user cell_admin) in order to set ACLs on files which are not owned by the owner of the cfengine-process. This is because you must have a valid security ticket.

NT ACLs

NT ACEs are written as follows:

       acl_type:user/group:permissions:accesstype

The actual change consists of the extra field containing the access type. A star/asterisk in the field for user/group would normally imply that the ACL applies to the owner of the file object. However this functionality is as of today not yet implemented.

In NT, the ACL type can be one of the following:

           user
           group

NT permissions are comprised of the bits rwxdpo, where:

    r - Read privileges
    w - Write privileges
    x - Execute privileges
    d - Delete privileges
    p - Privileges to change the permissions on the file
    o - Privileges to take ownership of the file

           read   - rx
           change - rwxd
           all    - rwxdpo

NT defines several different access types, of which only two are used in connection with the ACL type that is implemented in cfengine for NT. The access type can be one of the following:

           allowed
           denied

ACL Example

Here is an example of a configuration file for an NT ACL:

control:
        actionsequence = ( files )
        domain = ( iu.hioslo.no )

files:
        $(HOME)/tt    acl=acl_alias1    action=fixall

acl:
        { acl_alias1

        method:overwrite
        fstype:nt

        user:gustafb:rwx:allowed
        user:mark:all:allowed
        user:toreo:read:allowed
        user:torej:default:allowed
        user:ds2:+rwx:allowed

        group:dummy:all:denied
        group:iu:read:allowed
        group:root:all:allowed
        group:guest:dpo:denied
        }

ACL Example

Here is an example of a configuration file for one Solaris ACL and one DCE/DFS ACL:

control:
        actionsequence = ( files )
        domain = ( iu.hioslo.no )

files:
        $(HOME)/tt    acl=acl_alias1    action=fixall
        /:/bigfile    acl=acl_alias2    action=fixall

acl:
        { acl_alias1

        method:overwrite
        fstype:posix

        user:*:rwx
        user:mark:=rwx
        user:sowille:=rx
        user:toreo:=rx
        user:torej:default
        user:ds2:+rwx
        group:*:rx
        group:iu:r
        group:root:x
        mask:*:rx
        other:*:rx

        default_user:*:=rw
        default_user:mark:+rwx
        default_user:ds:=rwx
        default_group::=r
        default_group:iu:+r
        default_mask::w
        default_other::rwx
        }

        { acl_alias2

        method:overwrite
        fstype:dfs

        user:*:rwxcid
        group:*:rxd
        other:*:wxir
        mask:*:rxw
        user:/.../iu.hioslo.no/cell_admin:rc
        group:/.../iu.hioslo.no/acct-admin:rwxcid
        user:/.../iu.hioslo.no/root:rx
        }

binservers

The binservers declaration need only be used if you are using cfengine's model for mounting NFS filesystems. This declaration informs hosts of which other hosts on the network possess filesystems containing software (binary files) which client hosts should mount. This includes resources like programs in /usr/local and so on. A host may have several binary servers, since there may be several machines to which disks are physically attached. In most cases, on a well organized network, there will be only one architecture server per UNIX platform type, for instance a SunOS server, an ULTRIX server and so on.

Binary servers are defined as follows:

binservers:

   physics.sun4::   sunserver sunserver2
   physics.linux::  linuxserver

The meaning of this declaration is the following. All hosts of type sun4 which are members of the group physics should mount any binaries declared in the mountables resource list which belong to hosts sunserver or sunserver2. Similarly all linux machines should mount binary filesystems in the mountables list from linuxserver.

Cfengine knows the difference between binaries and home directories in the mountables list, because home directories match the pattern given by homepattern. See homepattern. See homeservers.

Note that every host is a binary server for itself, so that the first binary server (and that with highest priority) is always the current host. This ensures that local filesystems are always used in preference to NFS mounted filesystems. This is only relevant in connection with the variable $(binserver).

broadcast

This information is used to configure the network interface for each host.

Every local area network has a convention for determining which internet address is used for broadcast requests. Normally this is an address of the form aaa.bbb.ccc.255 or aaa.bbb.ccc.0. The difference between these two forms is whether all of the bits in the last number are ones or zeroes respectively. You must find out which convention is used at your establishment and tell cfengine using a declaration of the form:

broadcast:

  any::

     ones     # or zeros, or zeroes

In most cases you can use the generic class any, since all of the hosts on the same subnet have to use the same convention. If your configuration file encompasses several different subnets with different conventions then you will need to use a more specific.

Cfengine computes the actual value of the broadcast address using the value specified above and the netmask See netmask.

control

The fundamental piece of any cfengine script or configuration file is the control section. If you omit this part of a cfengine script, it will not do anything! The control section is used to define certain variables, set default values and define the order in which the various actions you have defined will be carried out. Because cfengine is a declarative or descriptive language, the order in which actions appear in the file does not necessarily reflect the order in which they are executed. The syntax of declarations here is:

  control:

     classes::

        variable = ( list or value )

The control section is a sequence of declarations which looks something like the following example:

control:

  site     = ( univ )
  domain   = ( univ.edu )
  sysadm   = ( admin@computing.univ.edu )
  netmask  = ( 255.255.252.0 )
  timezone = ( EDT )
  nfstype  = ( nfs )

  childlibpath = ( /usr/local:/mylibs )

  sensiblesize  = ( 1000 )
  sensiblecount = ( 2 )
  editfilesize  = ( 4000 )

  actionsequence =
     (
     links.some
     mountall
     links.others
     files
     )

  myvariable = ( something )
  mymacro    = ( somethingelse )

Parentheses are required when making a declaring information in cfengine.

The meaning of each of these lines is described below.

• access:
• actionsequence:
• addclasses:
• addinstallable:
• BinaryPaddingChar:
• ChecksumDatabase:
• ChecksumUpdates:
• childlibpath:
• copylinks:
• defaultcopytype:
• deletenonuserfiles:
• deletenonownerfiles:
• deletenonusermail:
• deletenonownermail:
• domain:
• dryrun:
• editbinaryfilesize:
• editfilesize:
• emptyresolvconf:
• exclamation:
• excludecopy:
• excludelinks:
• ExpireAfter:
• homepattern:
• IfElapsed:
• Inform:
• interfacename:
• fileextension:
• linkcopies:
• LogDirectory:
• LogTidyHomeFiles:
• moduledirectory:
• mountpattern:
• netmask:
• nonalphanumfiles:
• nfstype:
• repchar:
• repository:
• schedule:
• secureinput:
• sensiblecount:
• sensiblesize:
• showactions:
• site:
• SplayTime:
• split:
• spooldirectories:
• suspiciousnames:
• sysadm:
• Syslog:
• timezone:
• TimeOut:
• Verbose:
• Warnings:
• warnnonuserfiles:
• warnnonownerfiles:
• warnnonusermail:
• warnnonownermail:

access

The access list is a list of users who are to be allowed to execute a cfengine program. If the list does not exist then all users are allowed to run a program.

   access = ( user1 user2 ...  )

The list may consist of either numerical user identifiers or valid usernames from the password database. For example:

   access = ( mark aurora 22 456 )

would restrict a script to users mark, aurora and user id 22 and 456.

actionsequence

The action sequence determines the order in which collective actions are carried out. Here is an example containing the full list of possibilities:

   actionsequence =
      (
      mountall               # mount filesystems in fstab
      mountinfo              # scan mounted filesystems
      checktimezone          # check timezone
      netconfig              # check net interface config
      resolve                # check resolver setup
      unmount                # unmount any filesystems
      shellcommands          # execute shell commands
      editfiles              # edit files
      addmounts              # add new filesystems to system
      directories            # make any directories
      links                  # check and maintain links (single and child)
      mailcheck              # check mailserver
      mountall               # (again)
      required               # check required filesystems
      tidy                   # tidy files
      disable                # disable files
      files                  # check file permissions
      copy                   # make a copy/image of a master file
      processes              # signal / check processes
      module:name            # execute a user-defined module
      )

Here is a more complete description of the meaning of these keywords.

addmounts

causes cfengine to compute which NFS filesystems are missing from the current host and add them. This includes editing the filesystem table, creating the mount-directory, if required. This command relies on information provided by mountinfo, so it should normally only be called after mountinfo. If the filesystem already appears to be in the filesystem table, a warning is issued.

checktimezone

runs a check on the timezone defined for the shell running cfengine.

directories

executes all the commands defined under the directories section of the program. It builds new directories.

disable

executes all the commands defined under the disable section of the program.

editfiles

executes all the commands defined under the editfiles section of the program.

files

executes all the commands defined under the files section of the program.

links

executes all the commands defined under the links section of the program.

mailcheck

tests for the presence of the NFS-mounted mail spooling directory on the current host. The name of the mail spool directory is defined in the mailserver section of the cfengine program. If the current host is the same as the mailserver (the host which has the physical spool directory disk) nothing is done. Otherwise the filesystem table is edited so as to include the mail directory.

module

Normally cfengine's ability to detect the systems condition is limited to what it is able to determine while excuting predefined actions. Classes may be switched on as a result of actions cfengine takes to correct a problem. To increase the flexibility of cfengine, a mechanism has been introduced in version 1.5 which allows you to include a module of your own making in order to define or undefine a number of classes. The syntax

  module:mytests.class1.class2.class3

  "module:mytests.class1.class2.class3 arg1 arg2 .."

declares a user defined module which can potentially set the classes class1 etc. Classes returned by the module must be declared so that cfengine knows to pay attention to rules which use these classes when parsing. Note might actually be preferable to define classes returned by modules under AddInstallables which is equivalent. If arguments are passed to the module, the whole string must be quoted like a shellcommand. See Writing plugin modules. Whether or not these classes become set or not depends on the behaviour of your module. The classes continue to apply for all actions which occur after the module's execution. The module must be owned by the user executing cfengine or root (for security reasons), it must be named module:module-name and must lie in a special directory, See moduledirectory.

mountall

mounts all filesystems defined in the hosts filesystem table. This causes new NFS filesystems added by addmounts and mailcheck to be actually mounted. This should probably be called both before mountinfo and after addmounts etc. A short timeout is placed on this operation to avoid hanging RPC connections when parsing NFS mounted file systems.

mountinfo

builds internal information about which filesystems are presently mounted on the current host. Cfengine assumes that required-filesystems which are not found need to be mounted. A short timeout is placed on this operation to avoid hanging RPC connections when parsing NFS mounted file systems. If this times out, no further mount operations are considered reliable and are summarily cancelled.

netconfig

checks the netmask, hostname, IP address and broadcast address for the current host. The correct values for the netmask and broadcast address are set if there is an error. The defaultroute is matched against the static routing table and added if no default route exists. This does not apply to DHCP clients, which set a default route automatically.

required

executes all the commands defined under the required section of the program. It checks for the absence of important NFS resources.

resolve

checks and corrects the DNS domain name and the order of nameservers in the file /etc/resolv.conf.

shellcommands

executes all the commands defined under the shellcommands section of the program.

tidy

executes all the commands defined under the tidy section of the program.

unmount

executes all the commands defined under the unmount section of the program. The filesystem table is edited so as to remove the unwanted filesystems and the unmount operation is executed.

processes

executes commands defined under the processes section of the program.

Under normal circumstances this coarse ordering is enough to suit most purposes. In some cases you might want to, say, only perform half the link operations before mounting filesystems and then, say, perform the remainder. You can do this (and similar things) by using the idea of defining and undefining classes. See Defining classes.

The syntax

actionsequence =
   (
   links.firstpass.include
   ...
   links.secondpass
   )

means that cfengine first executes links with the classes firstpass and include defined. Later it executes links with secondpass defined. You can use this method of adding classes to distinguish more finely the flow of control in programs.

A note about style: if you define and undefine lots of classes to do what you want to do, you might stop and ask yourself if your groups are defined as well as they should be. See groups. Programming in cfengine is about doing a lot for only a little writing. If you find yourself writing a lot, you are probably not going about things in the right way.

AddClasses

   AddClasses  = ( list of identifiers )

The AddClasses directive is used to define a list of class attributes for the current host. Normally only the hard classes defined by the system are `true' for a given host. It is convenient though to be able to define classes of your own to label certain actions, mainly so that they can later be excluded so as to cut short or filter out certain actions. This can be done in two ways. See actionsequence.

To define a list of classes for the current session, you write:

AddClasses = ( exclude shortversion )

This is equivalent to (though more permanent than) defining classes on the command line with the -D option. You can now use these to qualify actions. For example

  any.exclude::
      ...

Under normal circumstances exclude is always true -- because you have defined it to be so, but you can undefine it in two ways so as to prevent the action from being carried out. One way is to undefine a class on the command line when you invoke cfengine:

host#  cfengine -N exclude

or

host#  cfengine -N exclude.shortversion

host#  cfengine -N a.b.c.d

These commands run cfengine with the named classes undefined. That means that actions labelled with these classes are excluded during that run.

Another way to restrict classes is to add a list of classes to be undefined in the actionsequence. See next section.

AddInstallable

   AddInstallable  = ( list of identifiers )

Some actions in your cfengine program will be labelled by classes which only become defined at run time using a define= option. Cfengine is not always able to see these classes until it meets them and tries to save space by only loading actions for classes which is believes will become defined at some point in the program. This can lead to some actions being missed if the action is parsed before the place where the class gets switched on, since cfengine is a one-pass interpreter,. To help cfengine determine classes which might become defined during a run, you can declare them in this list. It does no harm to declare classes here anyway. Here is an example where you need to declare a class because of the ordering of the actions.

control:

    AddInstallable  = ( myclass )

files:

   myclass::

     /tmp/test mode=644 action=fixall

copy:

     /tmp/foo dest=/tmp/test define=myclass

If we remove the declaration, then when cfengine meets the files command, it skips it because it knows nothing about the class myclass--when the copy command follows, it is too late. Remember that imported files are always parsed after the main program so definitions made in imported files always come later than things in the main program.

BinaryPaddingChar

BinaryPaddingChar = ( \0 )

ChecksumDatabase

ChecksumDatabase = ( /var/cfengine/cfdb )

If this filename is defined, cfengine will use it to store message digests (i.e. cryptographic checksums) of files for security purposes, See files, checksum=.

ChecksumUpdates

ChecksumUpdates = ( on )

This variable defaults to `off'. If set to true, cfagent will automatically update the checksum of a file, if it changes on the disk. This means that a security warning will be issued only once about files which have changed, and the changed version will be re-registered as the correct version. This option could be switched on after a system upgrade, for instance, in order to update the database, and then switched to `off' again to reduce the risk of missing a security alert. Alternatively, if you are confident that the first message is sufficient, it can be left as `on' so that only one message is given.

ChildLibPath

Sets a value for LD_LIBRARY_PATH in child processes:

 childlibpath = ( /usr/local/lib:/local/mysql/lib )

CopyLinks

This list is used to define a global list of names or patterns which are to be copied rather than linked symbolically. For example

CopyLinks = ( *.config )

Note that all entries defined under a specified class are valid only as long as that class is defined. For instance

  class::

      CopyLinks = ( pattern )

would define a pattern which was only valid when class is defined.

DefaultCopyType

This parameter determines the default form of copying for all copy operations parsed after this variable. The legal values are ctime (intial default), mtime, checksum and binary. e.g.

 DefaultCopyType = ( mtime )

DeleteNonUserFiles

If this parameter is set to true, cfengine will delete files which do not have a name belonging to a known user id.

DeleteNonUserFiles = ( true )

SpoolDirectories = ( /var/spool/cron/crontabs )

This is an generalization of DeleteNonUserMail and makes it redundant. it is formally executed as a part of the "tidy" action.

DeleteNonOwnerFiles

If this parameter is set to true, cfengine will delete files on mailservers whose names do not correspond to a known user name, but might be owned by a known user.

DeleteNonOwnerFiles = ( true )

SpoolDirectories = ( /var/spool/cron/crontabs )

This is an generalization of DeleteNonOwnerMail and makes it redundant.

DeleteNonUserMail

If this parameter is set to true, cfengine will delete mail files on mailservers which do not have a name belonging to a known user id. This does not include lock files.

DeleteNonOwnerMail

If this parameter is set to true, cfengine will delete files on mailservers whose names do not correspond to a known user name, but might be owned by a known user.

domain

  domain = ( domain name )

This variable defines the domainname for your site. You must define it here, because your system might not know its domainname when you run cfengine for the first time. The domainname can be used as a cfengine variable subsequently by referring to $(domain). The domainname variable is used by the action resolve. The domain is also used implicitly by other matching routines. You should define the domain as early as possible in your configuration file so as to avoid problems, especially if you have the strange practice of naming hosts with their fully qualified host names since groups which use fully qualified names can fail to be defined if cfengine is not able to figure out the domain name.

DryRun

  DryRun = ( on/off )

This variable has the same effect as the command line options --dry-run or -n. It tells cfengine to only report what it should do without actually doing it.

 classes::

   DryRun = ( on )

editbinaryfilesize

   EditBinaryFileSize  = ( size )

Cfengine will refuse to edit a file which is larger than the value of editbinaryfilesize in bytes. This is to prevent possible accidents from occurring. The default value for this variable is 10000000 bytes. If you don't like this feature, simply set the value to be a very large number or to zero. If the value is zero, cfengine will ignore it.

editfilesize

   EditfileSize  = ( size )

This variable is used by cfengine every time it becomes necessary to edit a file. Since file editing applies only to text files, the files are probably going to be relatively small in most cases. Asking to edit a very large (perhaps binary) file could therefore be the result of an error.

A check is therefore made as a security feature. Cfengine will refuse to edit a file which is larger than the value of editfilesize in bytes. This is to prevent possible accidents from occurring. The default value for this variable is 10000 bytes. If you don't like this feature, simply set the value to be a very large number or to zero. If the value is zero, cfengine will ignore it.

EmptyResolvConf

   EmptyResolvConf  = ( true )

Normally cfengine does not tidy up old entries in the /etc/resolv.conf file. This option causes cfengine to remove old nameserver entries.

Exclamation

This variable defaults to "on". If set to "off", no exclaimation marks are printed during security alerts, e.g. for checksum violations.

   Exclamation  = ( off )

ExcludeCopy

This list is used to define a global list of names or patterns which are to be excluded from copy operations. For example

 ExcludeCopy = ( *~ *% core )

Note that all entries defined under a specified class are valid only as long as that class is defined. For instance

  class::

      ExcludeCopy = ( pattern )

would define a pattern which was only valid when class is defined.

ExcludeLinks

This list is used to define a global list of names or patterns which are to be excluded from linking operations. For example

 ExcludeLinks = ( *~ *% core )

Note that all entries defined under a specified class are valid only as long as that class is defined. For instance

  class::

      ExcludeLinks = ( pattern )

would define a pattern which was only valid when class is defined.

ExpireAfter

This parameter controls the global value of the ExpireAfter parameter. See Spamming and security. This parameter controls the maximum time in minutes which a cfengine action is allowed to live. After this time cfengine will try to kill the cfengine which seems to have hung and attempt to restart the action.

 ExpireAfter = ( time-in-minutes )

This parameter may also be set per action in the action sequence by appending a pseudo-class called ExpireAftertime. For instance,

 actionsequence = ( copy.ExpireAfter15 )

sets the expiry time parameter to 15 minutes for this copy command.

HomePattern

   HomePattern  = ( list of patterns )

The homepattern variable is used by the cfengine model for mounting nfs filesystems. See NFS resources. It is also used in the evaluation of the pseudo variable home, See files, tidy.

homepattern is in fact a list and is used like a wildcard or pattern to determine which filesystems in the list of mountables are home directories. See mountables. This relies on your sticking to a rigid naming convention as described in the first reference above.

For example, you might wish to mount (or locate directly if you are not using a separate partition for home directories) your home directories under mountpattern in directories u1, u2 and so on. In this case you would define homepattern to match these numbers:

homepattern = ( u? )

Cfengine now regards any directory matching $(mountpattern)/u? as being a user login directory.

Suppose you want to create mount home directories under $(mountpattern)/home and make subdirectories for staff and students. Then you would be tempted to write:

 HomePattern = ( home/staff home/students )

Unfortunately this is not presently possible. (This is, in principle, a bug which should be fixed in the future.) What you can do instead is to achieve the same this as follows:

 MountPattern = ( /$(site)/$(host) /$(site)/$(host)/home )
 HomePattern = ( staff students )

IfElapsed

This parameter controls the global value of the IfElapsed parameter, See Spamming and security. This parameter controls the minimum time which must have elapsed for an action in the action sequence before which it will be executed again.

 IfElapsed = ( time-in-minutes )

This parameter may also be set per action in the action sequence by appending a pseudo-class called IfElapsedtime. For instance,

 ActionSequence = ( copy.IfElapsed15 )

sets the elapsed time parameter to 15 minutes for this copy command.

Inform

  Inform = ( on/off )

This variable switches on the output level whereby cfengine reports changes it makes during a run. Normally only urgent messages or clear errors are printed. Setting Inform to on makes cfengine report on all actions not explicitly cancelled with a `silent' option. To set this output level one writes:

 classes::

   Inform = ( on )

InterfaceName

If you have an operating system which is installed on some non-standard hardware, you might have to specifically set the name of the network interface. For example:

  control:

    nextstep.some::

       InterfaceName = ( en0 )

    nextstep.others::

       InterfaceName = ( ec0 )

It is only necessary to set the interface name in this fashion if you have an operating system which is running on special hardware. Most users will not need this. The choice set here overrides the system defaults and the choices made in the cfrc file, See cfrc resource file.

FileExtensions

This list may be used to define a number of extensions which are regarded as being plain files by the system. As part of the general security checking cfengine will warn about any directories which have names using these extensions. They may be used to conceal directories.

  FileExtensions = ( c o gif jpg html )

LinkCopies

This list is used to define a global list of names or patterns which are to be linked symbolically rather than copied. For example

excludelinks = ( *.gif *.jpg )

Note that all entries defined under a specified class are valid only as long as that class is defined. For instance

  class::

      LinkCopies = ( pattern )

would define a pattern which was only valid when class is defined.

LogDirectory

Specify an alternative directory for keeping cfengine's log data. This defaults to /var/run/cfengine or /var/cfengine.

  LogDirectory = ( /var/cfengine )

LogTidyHomeFiles

  LogTidyHomeFiles = ( off )

If set to "off", no log is made of user files, in their home directories, of the files which are tidied by cfengine.

moduledirectory

   moduledirectory  = ( directory for plugin modules )

This is the directory where cfengine will look for plug-in modules for the actionsequence, See actionsequence. Plugin modules may be used to activate classes using special algorithms. See Writing plugin modules.

mountpattern

   mountpattern  = ( mount-point )

The mountpattern list is used by the cfengine model for mounting nfs filesystems. See NFS resources. It is also used in the evaluation of the pseudo variable home, See files, tidy.

It is used together with the value of homepattern to locate and identify what filesystems are local to a given host and which are mounted over the network. For this list to make sense you need to stick to a rigid convention for mounting your filesystems under a single naming scheme as described in the section mentioned above. If you follow the recommended naming scheme then you will want to set the value of mountpattern to

mountpattern = ( /$(site)/$(host) )

which implies that cfengine will look for local disk partitions under a unique directory given by the name of the host and site. Any filesystems which are physically located on the current host lie in this directory. All mounted filesystems should lie elsewhere. If you insist on keeping mounted file systems in more than one location, you can make a list like this:

mountpattern = ( /$(site)/users /$(site)/projects )

netmask

   netmask = ( aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd )

The netmask variable defines the partitioning of the subnet addresses on your network. Its value is defined by your network administrator. On most systems it is likely to be 255.255.255.0. This is used to configure the network interface in netconfig. See actionsequence.

Every host on the internet has its own unique address. The addresses are assigned hierarchically. Each network gets a domain name and can attach something like 65,000 hosts to that network. Since this is usually too many to handle in one go, every such network may be divided up into subnets. The administrator of the network can decide how the division into subnets is made. The decision is a trade-off between having many subnets with few hosts, or many hosts on few subnets. This choice is made by setting the value of a variable called netmask. The netmask looks like an internet address. It takes the form:

   aaa.bbb.ccc.mmm

The first two numbers aaa.bbb are the address of the domain. The remainder ccc.mmm specifies both the subnet and the hostname. The value of netmask tells all hosts on the network: how many of the bits in the second half label different subnets and how many label different hosts on each of the subnets?

The most common value for the netmask is 255.255.255.0. It is most helpful to think of the netmask in terms of bits. Each base-10 number between 0-255 represents 8 bits which are either set or not set. Every bit which is set is a network address and every bit which is zero is part of a host address. The first two parts of the address 255.255 always takes these values. If the third number is 255, it means that the domain is divided up into 256 sub networks and then the remaining bits which are zero can be used to give 255 different host addresses on each of the subnets.

If the value had been 255.255.255.254, the network would be divided up into 2^15 subnets, since fifteen of the sixteen bits are one. The remaining bit leaves enough room for two addresses 0 and 1. One of those is reserved for broadcasts to all hosts, the other can be an actual host -- there would only be room for one host per subnet. This is a stupid example of course, the main point with the subnet mask is that it can be used to trade subnets for hosts per subnet. A value of 255.255.254.0 would allow 128 different subnets with 2*256-1 = 511 hosts on each.

We needn't be concerned with the details of the netmask here. Suffice it to say that its value is determined for your entire domain by the network administrator and each host has to be told what the value is.

Each host must also know what convention is used for the broadcast address. This is an address which hosts can send to if they wish to send a message to every other host on their subnet simultaneously. It is used a lot by services like NIS to ask if any hosts are willing to perform a particular service. There are two main conventions for the broadcast address: address zero (all host bits are zero) and the highest address on the subnet (all host bits are ones). The convention can be different on every subnet and it is decided by the network administrator. When you write a cfengine program you just specify the convention used on your subnet and cfengine works out the value of the broadcast address from the netmask and the host address See broadcast. Cfengine works out the value of the broadcast address using the value of the netmask.

NonAlphaNumFiles

If enabled, this option causes cfengine to detect and disable files which have purely non-alphanumeric filenames, i.e. files which might be accidental or deliberately concealed. The files are then marked with a suffix .cf-nonalpha and are rendered visible.

  NonAlphaNumFiles = ( on )

These files can then be tidied by searching for the suffix. Note that alphanumeric means ascii codes less than 32 and greater than 126.

nfstype

   nfstype = ( nfs-type )

This variable is included only for future expansion. If you do not define this variable, its value defaults to "nfs".

At present cfengine operates only with NFS (the network file system). When cfengine looks for network file systems to mount, it adds lines in the filesystem table (/etc/fstab,/etc/checklist etc.) to try to mount filesystems of type "nfs". In principle you might want to use a completely different system for mounting filesystems over the network, in which case the `mount type' would not be "nfs" but something else.

At the time of writing certain institutions are replacing NFS with AFS (the Andrew filesystem) and DFS (from the distributed computing environment). The use of these filesystems really excludes the need to use the mount protocol at all. In other words if you are using AFS or DFS, you don't need to use cfengine's mounting commands at all.

RepChar

   RepChar  = ( character )

The value of this variable determines the characters which is used by cfengine in creating the unique filenames in the file repository. Normally, its value is set to _ and each / in the path name of the file is changed to _ and stored in the repository. If you prefer a different character, define it here. Note that the character can be quoted with either single or double quotes in order to encompass spaces etc.

Repository

   Repository  = ( directory )

Defines a special directory where all backup and junk files are collected. Files are assigned a unique filename which identifies the path from which they originate. This affects files saved using disable, copy, links and editfiles See Disabling and the file repository.

Schedule

   schedule  = (  Min00_05 Min30_35 time class )

When cfexecd is used in daemon mode, it defaults to running once an hour, on the hour, i.e..

   schedule  = (  Min00_05 )

Other time classes can be used in the schedule list, but note that cfexecd will not run the agent more than once every five minutes. This is treated as a fundamental granularity.

SecureInput

   SecureInput = ( on )

If this is set cfengine will not import files which are not owned by the uid running the program, or which are writable by groups or others.

SensibleCount

   SensibleCount  = ( count )

This variable is used by the action required. It defines for cfengine what you consider to be the minimum number of files in a `required' directory. If you declare a directory as being required, cfengine will check to see if it exists. Then, if the directory contains fewer than the value of sensiblecount files, a warning is issued. The default value for this variable is 2.

SensibleSize

   SensibleSize  = ( size )

This variable is used by the action required. It defines for cfengine what you consider to be the minimum size for a `required' file. If you declare a file as being required, cfengine will check to see if the file exists. Of course, the file may exist but be empty, so the size of the file is also checked against this constant. If the file is smaller than the value of sensiblesize a warning is issued. The default value for this variable is 1000 bytes.

ShowActions

   ShowActions  = ( on )

This causes cfengine to produce detailed output of what action is being carried out as part of the prefix information during output. This is intended only for third party tools which collect and parse the cfengine output. It will be of little interest to humans.

site/faculty

  site    = ( sitename )
  faculty = ( facultyname )

This variable defines a convenient name for your site configuration. It is useful for making generic rules later on, because it means for instance that you can define the name of a directory to be

/$(site)/$(host)/local

without having to redefine the rule for a specific site. This is a handy trick for making generic rules in your files which can be imported into a configuration for any site.

faculty is a synonym for site. The two names may be used interchangeably.

SplayTime

  SplayTime = ( time-in-minutes )

This variable is used to set the maximum time over which cfengine will share its load on a server, See Splaying host times.

Split

   Split  = ( character )

The value of this variable is used to define the list separator in variables which are expected to be treated as lists. The default value of this variable is the colon :. Cfengine treats variables containing this character as lists to be broken up and iterated over in the following cases:

• in the `to' field of a multiple link action,
• in the `from' field of a copy action,
• in the directory field of a tidy action,
• in the directory field of the files action,
• in the ignore action.

This typically allows communication with PATH-like environment variables in the shell.

SpoolDirectories

A list of additional spool directories for cfengine to police. In these directories, filenames should correspond to existing users of the system. When users lost their accounts, this list plus the mail spool directory will be checked for files owned by deprecated users. See also: DeleteNonOwnerFiles, DeleteNonUserFiles.

  SpoolDirectories = ( /var/spool/cron/crontabs /var/spool/cron/atjobs )

suspiciousnames

  SuspiciousNames = ( .mo lrk3 )

Filenames in this list are treated as suspicious and generate a warning as cfengine scans directories. This might be used to detect hacked systems or concealed programs. Checks are only made in directories which cfengine scans in connection with a command such as files, tidy or copy.

sysadm

   sysadm = ( mail address )

The mail address of your system administrator should be placed here. This is used in two instances. If cfengine is invoked with the option -a, then it simply prints out this value. This is a handy feature for making scripts.

The administrators mail address is also written into the personal log files which cfengine creates for each user after tidying files, so you should make this an address which users can mail if they have troubles.

Syslog

  Syslog = ( on/off )

This variable activates syslog logging of cfengine output at the `inform' level.

To set this output level one writes:

 classes::

   Syslog = ( on )

timezone

   timezone = ( 3-character timezone )

The timezone variable is a list of character strings which define your local timezone. Normally you will only need a single timezone, but sometimes there are several aliases for a given timezone e.g. MET and CET are synonymous. Currently only the first three characters of this string are checked against the timezone which cfengine manages to glean from the system. If a mismatch is detected a warning message is printed. cfengine does not attempt to configure the timezone. This feature works only as a reminder, since the timezone should really be set once and for all at the time the system is installed. On some systems you can set the timezone by editing a file, a procedure which you can automate with cfengine See editfiles.

The value of the timezone can be accessed by variable substitution in the usual way. It expands to the first item in your list.

shellcommands:

       "echo ${timezone} | mail ${sysadm}"

TimeOut

  TimeOut = ( 10 )

The default timeout for network connections is 10 seconds. This is too short on some routed networks. It is not permitted to set this variable smaller than 3 seconds or larger than 60 seconds.

Verbose

  Verbose = ( on/off )

This variable switches on the output level whereby cfengine reports everything it does during a run in great detail. Normally only urgent messages or clear errors are printed, See Inform. This option is almost equivalent to using the --verbose of -v command-line options. The only difference is that system environment reporting information, which is printed prior to parsing, is not shown. To set this output level on selected hosts one writes:

 classes::

   Verbose = ( on )

For related more limited output, See Inform.

Warnings

  Warnings = ( on/off )

This variable switches on the parser-output level whereby cfengine reports non-fatal warnings. This is equivalent to setting the command line switch --no-warn, or -w. To set this output level on selected hosts one writes:

 classes::

   Warnings = ( on )

WarnNonUserFiles

If this parameter is set to true, cfengine will warn about files in spool directories which do not have a name belonging to a known user id.

See also DeleteNonUserFiles.

WarnNonOwnerFiles

If this parameter is set to true, cfengine will warn about files on mailservers whose names do not correspond to a known user name, but might be owned by a known user.

SpoolDirectories = ( /var/spool/cron/crontabs )

WarnNonOwnerFiles = ( true )

See also DeleteNonOwnerFiles. This generalizes and succeeds DeleteNonOwnerMail.

WarnNonUserMail

If this parameter is set to true, cfengine will warn about mail files on mailservers which do not have a name belonging to a known user id. This does not include lock files.

WarnNonOwnerMail

If this parameter is set to true, cfengine will warn about files on mailservers whose names do not correspond to a known user name, but might be owned by a known user.

classes

The classes keyword is an alias for groups as of version 1.4.0 of cfengine.

copy

Cfengine copies files between locally mounted filesystems and via the network from registered servers. The copy algorithm avoids race-conditions which can occur due to network and system latencies by copying first to a file called file.cfnew on the local filesystem, and then renaming this quickly into place. The aim of this roundabout procedure is to avoid situations where the direct rewriting of a file is interrupted midway, leaving a partially written file to be read by other processes. Cfengine attempts to preserve hard links to non-directory file-objects, but see the caution below.

Caution should be exercised in copying files which change rapidly in size. This can lead to file corruption, if the size changes during copying. Cfengine attempts to prevent this during remote copies.

The syntax summary is:

copy:

   class::

      master-file
                        dest=destination-file
                        mode=mode
                        owner=owner
                        group=group
                        action=silent/fix
                        backup=true/false
                        repository=backup directory
                        stealth=true/on/false/off
                        timestamps=preserve/keep
                        symlink=pattern
                        include=pattern
                        exclude=pattern
                        ignore=pattern
                        filter=filteralias
                        recurse=number/inf/0
                        type=ctime/mtime/checksum/sum/byte/binary
                        linktype=absolute/symbolic/relative/hard/none/copy
                        typecheck=true/on/false/off
                        define=class-list(,:.)
                        elsedefine=class-list(,:.)

                        force=true/on/false/off
                        forcedirs=true/on/false/off
                        forceipv4=true/on/false/off
                        size=size limits
                        server=server-host

                        trustkey=true/false
                        secure=[deprecated]
                        encrypt=true/false
                        verify=true/false
                        oldserver=true/false

                        purge=true/false

                        syslog=true/on/false/off
                        inform=true/on/false/off

dest

The destination file is the only obligatory item. This must be the name of an object which matches the type of the master object i.e. if the master is a plain file, the destination must also be the explicit name of a plain file. An implicit `copy file to directory' syntax is not allowed. Symbolic links are copied as symbolic links, plain files are copied as plain files and special files are copied as special files. The recurse option is required to copy the contents of subdirectories.

mode, owner, group

The file mode, owner and group of the images are specified as in the files function See files.

action

The action may take the values warn or silent. The default action is fix, i.e. copy files. If warn is specified, only a warning is issued about files which require updating. If silent is given, then cfengine will copy the files but not report the fact.

force

If set to `true', this option causes cfengine to copy files regardless of whether it is up to date.

forceipv4

If you are working on an ipv6 enabled pair of hosts, cfengine will normally select ipv6 for communication between them. If you wish to force the use of ipv4 for some reason, set this option to true.

forcedirs

If set to `true', this option causes files or links which block the creation of directories, during recursive copying, to be moved aside forcably. A single non-supressable warning is given when this occurs; the file is moved to filename.cf-moved.

backup

If the backup option is set to "false", cfengine will not make a backup copy of the file before copying.

repository

This allows a local override of the Repository variable, on an item by item basis. If set to "off" or "none" it cancels the value of a global repository.

Copy makes a literal image of the master file at the destination, checking whether the master is newer than the image. If the image needs updating it is copied. Existing files are saved by appending .cfsaved to the filename.

stealth

If set to `on' causes cfengine to preserve atime and mtime on source files during local file copies. File times cannot be preserved on remote copies. This option should normally only be used together with a checksum copy, since preserving atime and mtime implies changing ctime which will force continual copying. This is a weakness in the Unix file system. Ctime cannot be preserved. Before version 1.5.0, there was a typo which made this option active on many file copies.

timestamps

If this is set to `preserve' or `keep', the times of the source files are kept by the destination files during copying. This is like the `p' option of the tar command.

recurse

Specifies the depth of recursion when copying whole file-trees recursively. The value may be a number or the keyword inf. Cfengine crosses device boundaries or mounted filesystems when descending recursively through file trees. To prevent this it is simplest to specify a maximum level of recursion.

symlink

This option may be repeated a number of times to specify the names of files, or wildcards which match files which are to be symbolically linked instead of copied. A global list of patterns can also be defined in the control section of the program See linkcopies.

ignore

This works like the global ignore directive but here you may provide a private list of ignorable directories and files. Unlike include, exclude this affects the way cfengine parses directory trees.

include

This option may be repeated a number of times to specify the names of files, or wildcards which match files which are to be included in a copy operation. Specifying one of these automatically excludes everything else except further include patterns. A global list of patterns can also be defined in the control section of the program.

exclude

This option may be repeated a number of times to specify the names of files, or wildcards which match files which are to be excluded from a copy operation. A global list of patterns can also be defined in the control section of the program `excludes' override `includes'. See excludelinks.

type

Normally cfengine uses the ctime date-stamps on files to determine whether a file needs to be copied: a file is only copied if the master is newer than the copy or if the copy doesn't exist. If the type is set to checksum or sum, then a secure MD5 checksum is used to determine whether the source and destination files are identical. If byte or binary is specified, a byte by byte comparison is initiated. An mtime comparison does not take into account changes of file permissions, only modifications to the contents of the files.

server

If you want to copy a file remotely from a server, you specify the name of the server here. This must be the name of a host which is running the cfservd daemon, and you must make sure that you have defined the variable domain in the control section of the cfagent.conf file. If you don't define a domain you will probably receive an error of the form `cfengine: Hey! cannot stat file'.

oldserver

If this is true, cfengine uses the old protocol specification for temporary compatibility with early version 2 alphas.

trustkey

This option defaults to 'no' or 'false'. If set to true, cfagent will accept a public key from a server whose public key is presently unknown to the agent, on trust. This option should be used to bootstrap public key transfer between hosts. Once a public key has been accepted, it will not be replaced automatically. Dated public keys must be removed by hand.

encrypt

Has an effect only when used in conjuction with copy from a remote file server. This causes cfengine to use encryption and one-time keys on transferred data. (This requires RSA keys to be installed on both client and server hosts, and provides strong authentication and encryption, using random session keys.) The preferred algorithm is Blowfish, with a 128 bit key. Generally speaking the only case in which this function makes sense is in transferring shadow password files. Encrypting the transfer of system binaries makes little sense. Note: the encryption keys required to get files from cfservd are those for the user under which cfservd is running (normally root).

verify

If verify is true, cfagent attempts to verify the integrity of a remote file transfer before the new file is installed. This takes time, since an MD5 computation and transaction must take place.

size

With this option you can specify that a file is only to be copied if the source file meets a size critereon. This could be used to avoid installing a corrupted file (the copying of an empty password file, for instance). Sizes are in bytes by default, but may also be quoted in kilobytes or megabytes using the notation:

numberbytes
numberkbytes
numbermbytes

Only the first characters of these strings are significant, so they may be written however is convenient: e.g. 14kB, 14k, 14kilobytes etc. Examples are:

   size=<400  # copy if file size is < 400 bytes
   size=400   # copy if file size is equal to 400 bytes
   size=>400  # copy if file size > 400 bytes

linktype

This option determines the type of link used to make links. This only applies if the file is linked rather than copied because it matches a pattern set by symlink. The default type is a direct symbolic link. The values relative or absolute may be used, but hard links may not be created in place of copied files, since hard links must normally reside on the same filesystem as their files, and it is assumed that most links will be between filesystems. If this value is set to copy or none, symbolic links will be replaced by actual copies of the files they point to. Note that for directories, this option is ignored.

typecheck

Controls whether cfengine allows files of one type to overwrite files of another type, i.e. switches on/off errors if source and existing destination files do not match in type, e.g. if a file would overwrite a directory or link. The default is on for safety reasons.

define

This option is followed by a list of classes which are to be `switched on' if and only if the named file was copied. In multiple (recursive) copy operations the classes become defined if any of the files in the file tree were copied. This feature is useful for switching on other actions which are to be performed after the installation of key files (e.g. package installation scripts etc).

purge

If this option is set to true, cfengine will remove files in the destination directory which are not also in the source directory. This allows exact images of filesystems to be mantained. Note that if the copy command has includes or excludes or ignored files, cfengine will purge only those files on the client machine which are also on the server. Included files are not purged. This means that some files (such as system specific work files) can be excluded from copies without them being destroyed. Note that purging is disallowed if contant with a remote server fails. This means that local files will not be destroyed by a denial of service attack. You should not use this option to synchronize NFS mounted file systems. If the NFS server goes down, cfengine cannot then tell the difference between a valid empty directory and a missing NFS file system. If you use purge, use a remote copy also. If we specify purge, then the following options will also be set and cannot be altered: forcedirs=true, typecheck=false, since other defaults could be very destructive.

Example:

copy:

      /local/etc/aliases dest=/etc/aliases m=644 o=root g=other
      /local/backup-etc  dest=/etc

   solaris::

      /local/etc/nsswitch.conf dest=/etc/nsswitch.conf

In the first example, a global aliases file is copied from the master site file /local/etc/aliases to /etc/aliases, setting the owner and protection as specified. The file gets installed if /etc/aliases doesn't exist and updated if /local/etc/aliases is newer than /etc/aliases. In the second example, backup-etc is a directory containing master configuration files (for instance, services, aliases, passwd...). Each of the files in backup-etc is installed or updated under /etc. Finally, a global nsswitch.conf file is kept up to date for solaris systems.

The home directive can be used as a destination, in which case cfengine will copy files to every user on the system. This is handy for distributing setup files and keeping them updated:

copy:

   /local/masterfiles/.cshrc  dest=home/.cshrc mode=0600

You can force the copying of files, regardless of the date stamps by setting the option force=true or force=on. The default is force=false or force=off.

• hard links in copy:
• Too many open files:

Hard links in copying

Hard links are not like symbolic links, they are not merely pointers to other files, but alternative names for the same file. The name of every file is a hard link, the first so to speak. You can add additional names which really are the file, they are not just pointers. For the technically minded, they are not separate inodes, they are additional directory references to the same inode. When you perform a copy operation on multiple files, cfengine attempts to preserve hard links but this is a difficult task.

Because a hard link just looks like an ordinary file (it cannot be distingiushed from the original, the way a symbolic link can) there is a danger that any copy operation will copy two hard links to the same file as two separate copies of the same file. The difference is that changes a hard-linked file propagate to the links, whereas two copies of a file are completely independent thereafter. In order to faithfully reproduce all hardlinks to all files, cfengine needs to examine every file on the same filesystem and check whether they have the same inode-number. This would be an enourmous overhead, so it is not done. Instead what happens is that cfengine keeps track of only the files which it is asked to examine, for each atomic copy-command, and makes a note of any repeated inodes within this restricted set. It does not try to go off, wandering around file systems looking to other files which might be hardlinks.

To summarize, cfengine preserves hardlinks during copying, only within the scope of the present search. No backups are made of hard links, only of the first link or name of the file is backed up. This is a necessary precaution to avoid dangling references in the inode table. As a general rule, hard links are to be avoided because they are difficult to keep track of.

Too many open files

In long recursive copies, where you descend into many levels of diretories, you can quickly run out of file descriptors. The number of file descriptors is a resource which you can often set in the shell. It is a good idea to set this limit to a large number on a host which will be copying a lot of files. For instance, in the C shell you would write,

limit descriptors 1024

Most systems should have adequate defaults for this parameter, but on some systems it appears to be set to a low value such as 64, which is not sufficient for large recursive tree searches.

defaultroute

Dynamical routing is not configurable in cfengine, but for machines with static routing tables it is useful to check that a default route is configured to point to the nearest gateway or router. The syntax for this statement is simply:

defaultroute:

   class::

      my_gateway

For example:

defaultroute:

  most::

     129.240.22.1


  rest::

     small_gw

Gateways and routers usually have internet address aaa.bbb.ccc.1 -- i.e. the first address on the subnet. You may use the numerical form or a hostname for the gateway.

disks

This is a synonyn for required, See required. This action tests for the existence of a file or filesystem. It should be called after all NFS filesystems have been mounted. You may use the special variable $(binserver) here.

  disks:

    /filesystem freespace=size-limit define=class-list(,:.)

     inform=true log=true force=true

Files or filesystems which you consider to be essential to the operation of the system can be declared as `required'. Cfengine will warn if such files are not found, or if they look funny.

Suppose you mount your filesystem /usr/local via NFS from some binary server. You might want to check that this filesystem is not empty! This might occur if the filesystem was actually not mounted as expected, but failed for some reason. It is therefore not enough to check whether the directory /usr/local exists, one must also check whether it contains anything sensible.

Cfengine uses two variables: sensiblesize and sensiblecount to figure out whether a file or filesystem is sensible or not. You can change the default values of these variables (which are 1000 and 2 respectively) in the control section. See control.

If a file is smaller than sensiblesize or does not exist, it fails the `required' test. If a directory does not exist, or contains fewer than sensiblecount files, then it also fails the test and a warning is issued.

disks:

   any::

      /$(site)/$(binserver)/local

If you set the freespace variable to a value and set inform=true, cfagent issues warnings when free disk space falls below this threshold. Any define-classes also become defined in this instance. (the default units are kilobytes, but you may specify bytes or megabytes), e.g.

If the option force=true is used, cfengine will parse filesystems even on NFS mounted filesystems. Normally it does not make sense to check filesystems that are not native to the local host, but occasionally ne would like to force such a check in order to set a class, based on the result, for instance.

directories

Directories declarations consist of a number of directories to be created. Directories and files may also be checked and created using the touch option in the files actions. See files.

The form of a declaration is:

  directories:

     classes::

         /directory
                         mode=mode
                         owner=uid
                         group=gid
                         define=classlist
                         syslog=true/on/false/off
                         inform=true/on/false/off

For example

directories:

  class::

     /usr/local/bin  mode=755 owner=root group=wheel

The form of the command is similar to that of files but this command is only used to create new directories. Valid options are mode, owner, group and are described under files See files. This interface is only for convenience. It is strictly a part of the `files' functionality and is performed together with other `files' actions at run time.

The creation of a path will fail if one of the links in the path is a plain file or device node. A list of classes may optionally be defined here if a directory is created.

disable

Disabling a file means renaming it so that it becomes harmless. This feature is useful if you want to prevent certain dangerous files from being around, but you don't want to delete them-- a deleted file cannot be examined later. The syntax is

 disable:

   class::

      /filename
                      type=plain/file/link/links
                      rotate=empty/truncate/numerical-value
                      size=numerical-value
                      define=classlist
                      syslog=true/on/false/off
                      inform=true/on/false/off
                      repository=destination directory
                      action=disable/warn

Cfengine renames a given file by appending the name of the file with the suffix .cfdisabled. A typical example of a file you would probably want to disable would be the /etc/hosts.equiv file which is often found with the + symbol written in it, opening the system concerned to the entire NIS universe without password protection! Here is an example:

disable:

      /etc/hosts.equiv
      /etc/nologin
      /usr/lib/sendmail.fc

   sun4::

      /var/spool/cron/at.allow

Hint: The last example disables a file which restricts access to the at utility. Such a command could be followed by a file action, See files,

files:

   some::

      /var/spool/cron/at.allow =0644 N [root] [wheel] touch

which would create an empty security file at.allow. See also your system manual pages for the at command if you don't understand why this could be useful.

Disabling a link deletes the link. If you wish you may use the optional syntax

disable:

    /directory/name type=file

to specify that a file object should only be disabled if it is a plain file. The optional element type= can take the values plain, file, link or links. If one of these is specified, cfengine checks the type and only disables the object if there is a match. This allows you to disable a file and replace it by a link to another file for instance.

NOTE that if you regularly disable a file which then gets recreated by some process, the disabled file filename.cfdisabled will be overwritten each time cfengine disables the file and therefore the contents of the original are lost each time. The rotate facility was created for just this contingency.

The disable feature can be used to control the size of system log files, such as /var/adm/messages using a further option rotate. If the value rotate is set to 4, say,

 disable:

    filename  rotate=4

then cfengine renames the file concerned by appending `.1' to it and a new, empty file is created in its place with the same owner and permissions. The next time disable is executed `.1' is renamed to `.2' and the file is renamed `.1' and a new empty file is created with the same permissions. Cfengine continues to rotate the files like this keeping a maximum of four files. This is similar to the behaviour of syslog.

If you simply want to empty the contents of a log file, without retaining a copy then you can use rotate=empty or rotate=truncate. For instance, to keep control of your World Wide Web server logs:

disable:

   Sunday|Wednesday::

       /usr/local/httpd/logs/access_log  rotate=empty

This keeps a running log which is emptied each Sunday and Wednesday.

The size= option in disable allows you to carry out a disable operation only if the size of the file is less than, equal to or greater than some specified size. Sizes are in bytes by default, but may also be quoted in kilobytes or megabytes using the notation:

numberbytes
numberkbytes
numbermbytes

Only the first characters of these strings are significant, so they may be written however is convenient: e.g. 14kB, 14k, 14kilobytes etc. Examples are:

   size=<400  # disable if file size is < 400 bytes
   size=400   # disable if file size is equal to 400 bytes
   size=>400  # disable if file size > 400 bytes

This options works with rotate or normal disabling; it is just an extra condition which must be satisfied.

If a disable command results in action being taken by cfengine, an optional list of classes becomes can be switched on with the aid of a statement define=classlist in order to trigger knock-on actions.

The repository declaration allows a local override of the Repository variable, on an item by item basis. If set to "off" or "none" it cancels the value of a global repository and leaves the disabled file in the same directory.

editfiles

Performs ascii (line-based) editing on text-files or limited binary editing of files. If editing a file which has hard links to it, be aware that editing the file will destroy the hard link references. This is also the case with shell commands. You should avoid hard links whenever possible. The form of an editing command is editfiles can also search directories recursively through directories and edit all files matching a pattern, using Include, Exclude, and Ignore (see Recursive File Sweeps in the tutorial).

editfiles:

   class::

      { file-to-be-edited

      action "quoted-string..."
      }

      { directory-to-be-edited

      Recurse "inf"
      Filter  "filteralias"
      Include ".cshrc"
      Ignore  "bin"
      Ignore  ".netscape"
      action "quoted-string..."
      }

Here are some examples:

editfiles:

   sun4::

      { /etc/netmasks

      DeleteLinesContaining "255.255.254.0"
      AppendIfNoSuchLine "128.39  255.255.255.0"
      }

   PrintServers::
      { /etc/hosts.lpd

      AppendIfNoSuchLine "tor"
      AppendIfNoSuchLine "odin"
      AppendIfNoSuchLine "borg"
      }

The first of these affects the file /etc/netmasks on all SunOS 4 systems, deleting any lines containing the string "255.255.254.0" and Appending a single line to the file containing "128.39 255.255.255.0" if none exists already. The second affects only hosts in the class `PrintServers' and adds the names of three hosts: tor, odin and borg to the file /etc/hosts.lpd which specifies that they are allowed to connect to the printer services on any host in the class `PrintServers'.

Note that single or double quotes may be used to enclose strings in cfengine. If you use single quotes, your strings may contain double quotes and vice-versa. Otherwise a double quoted string may not currently contain double quotes and likewise for single quoted strings.

As of version 1.3.0, you can use the home directive in edit filenames, enabling you to edit files for every user on the system, provided they exist. For example, to edit every user's login files, you would write

  { home/.cshrc

   AppendIfNoSuchLine "setenv PRINTER default-printer"
   AppendIfNoSuchLine "set path = ( $path /new/directory )"
  }

If a user does not possess the named file, cfengine just skips that user. A new file is not created.

The meanings of the file-editing actions should be self-explanatory. Commands containing the word 'comment' are used to `comment out' certain lines in a file rather than deleting them. Hash implies a shell comment of the type

# comment

Slash implies a comment of the C++ type:

// comment

Percent implies a comment of the type:

% comment

More general comment types may be defined using the SetCommentStart, SetCommentEnd and CommentLinesMatching, CommentLinesStarting functions.

A special group of editing commands is based on the GNU Regular Expression package. These use GNU regular expressions to search line by line through text and perform various editing functions. Some of these commands are based on the concept of a file pointer. The pointer starts at line one of the file and can be reset by 'locating' a certain line, or by using the reset-pointer commands. The current position of the pointer is used by commands such as InsertLine to allow a flexible way of editing the middle of files.

A simple decision mechanism is incorporated to allow certain editing actions to be excluded. For instance, to insert a number of lines in a file once only, you could write:

   { file

    LocateLineMatching "insert point..."
    IncrementPointer   "1"

    BeginGroupIfNoMatch "# cfengine - 2/Jan/95"
      IncremenetPointer "-1"
      InsertLine "# cfengine - 2/Jan/95"
      InsertLine "/local/bin/start-xdm"

    EndGroup
   }

Since the first inserted line matches the predicate on subsequent calls, the grouped lines will only be carried out once.

The full list of editing actions is given below in alphabetical order. Note that some commands refer to regular expressions and some refer to 'literal strings' (i.e. any string which is not a regular expression). Variable substitution is performed on all strings. Be aware that symbols such as ., * and so on are meta-characters in regular expressions and a backslash must be used to make them literal. The regular expression matching functions are POSIX extended regular expressions. See Regular expressions.

AbortAtLineMatching quoted-regex

This command sets the value of a regular expression. In all editing operations (except FixEndOfLine and GotoLastLine) which involve multiple replacements and searches, this expression marks a boundary beyond which cfengine will cease to look any further. In other words, if cfengine encounters a line matching this regular expression, it aborts the current action. BE CAREFUL with this feature: once set, the string remains set for the remainder of the current file. It might therefore interact in unsuspected ways with other search parameters. Editing actions are always aborted as soon as the abort expression is matched. Use UnsetAbort to unset the feature.

Append quoted-string

Add a line containing the quoted string to the end of the file. This should be used in conjunction with the decision structures BeginGroupIfNoLineMatching and BreakIfLineMatches.

AppendIfNoSuchLine quoted-string

Add a line containing the quoted string to the end of the file if the file doesn't contain the exact line already.

AppendIfNoLineMatching quoted-regex

A new version of the older AppendIfNoSuchLine which uses a regular expression instead of a literal string. The line which gets appended must be set previously using SetLine.

AppendToLineIfNotContains quoted-string

This commands looks for an exact match of the quoted string in the current line. If the quoted string is not contained in the line, it is appended. This may be used for adding entries to a list.

AutoCreate

If this command is listed anywhere in the file action list, cfengine will create the named file if it doesn't exist. Normally cfengine issues an error if the named file does not exist, but if this is set, notification of the file's absence is only in verbose output. New files are created with mode 644 (see also Umask), read access for everyone and write access for the cfengine user (normally root). Note that if you set this, BeginGroupIfFileIsNewer will always be true.

AutomountDirectResources quoted-string

This command is designed to assist with automounter configuration for users wishing to use the automounter for NFS filesystems, but still use the cfengine mount model. Applied to the current file, it is equivalent to saying: for each of the mountable resources in the list See mountables, append if not found a line for a direct automount map command, to the current file. The string which follows can be used to specify any special mount options e.g. "-nosuid" for non setuid mounting (of all the mountables). Note that this is added to the current file and not to a file named /etc/auto_direct.

Backup quoted-string

Set to true or false, on or off to set inform level for this file. Default is on.

BeginGroupIfDefined quoted-string

The lines following, up to the first EndGroup are executed if the quoted class is defined.

BeginGroupIfNotDefined quoted-string

The lines following, up to the first EndGroup are executed if the quoted class is not defined.

BeginGroupIfFileExists quoted-string

The lines following, up to the first EndGroup are executed if the quoted filename exists (can be statted). Files which are not readable by the running process are for all intents and purposes non-existent.

BeginGroupIfFileIsNewer quoted-string

The lines following, up to the first EndGroup are executed if the quoted filename is newer than the file being edited.

BeginGroupIfNoLineContaining quoted-string

The lines following, up to the first EndGroup are executed if the quoted string does not appear in any line in the file.

BeginGroupIfNoLineMatching quoted-regex

The lines following, up to the first EndGroup are executed if the quoted regular expression does not match any line in the file.

BeginGroupIfNoMatch quoted-regex

The lines following, up to the first EndGroup are executed if the quoted regular expression does not match the current line.

BeginGroupIfNoSuchLine quoted-string

The lines following, up to the first EndGroup are executed if the quoted literal string does not match any line in the file.

BreakIfLineMatches quoted-regex

Terminates further editing of the current file if the current line matches the quoted regular expression.

CatchAbort

Edit actions which abort on failure (such as LocateLineMatching) will jump to the first instance of this marker instead of completely aborting an edit if this keyword occurs in an editing script. You can catch the exceptions thrown by the following commands: CommentNLines,CommentToLineMatching,DeleteNLines,DeleteToLineMatching, HashCommentToLineMatching,IncrementPointer, LocateLineMatching,PercentCommentToLineMatching, RunScriptIf(No)LineMatching,UnCommentNLines.

CommentLinesMatching quoted-regex

Use the current value of the comment delimiters set using SetCommentStart and SetCommentEnd to comment out lines matching the given regular expression in quotes.

CommentLinesStarting quoted-string

Use the current value of the comment delimiters set using SetCommentStart and SetCommentEnd to comment out lines starting with the quoted literal string.

CommentNLines quoted-string

Comments up to N lines from the current file, starting from the location of the current line pointer. If the end of the file is reached and less than N lines are deleted, a warning is issued, but editing continues. The current value of the comment delimiters is used to determine the method of commenting, (see SetCommentStart). After the operation the pointer points to the line after the commented lines.

CommentToLineMatching quoted-regex

Use the current value of the comment delimiters set using SetCommentStart and SetCommentEnd to comment out lines from the current position in a file to a line matching the given regular expression in quotes.

DefineClasses "class1:class2:..."

Activate the following colon, comma or dot-separated list of classes if and only if the file is edited.

DeleteLinesAfterThisMatching quoted-regex

Delete lines after the current position which match the quoted expression.

DeleteLinesContaining quoted-string

Delete all lines containing the exact string quoted.

DeleteLinesMatching quoted-regex

Delete all lines matching the quoted regular expression.

DeleteLinesStarting quoted-string

Delete all lines beginning with the exact string quoted.

DeleteNLines quoted-string

Deletes up to N lines from the current file, starting from the location of the current line pointer. If the end of the file is reached and less than N lines are deleted, a warning is issued, but editing continues.

DeleteToLineMatching quoted-regex

Delete lines from the current position, up to but not including a line matching the regular expression in the quoted string. If no line matches the given expression, a warning is only printed in verbose mode, but all edits are immediately abandoned.

EditMode "Binary"

If set to binary, the file will be edited as if it were a non-ASCII file. See discussion below.

   EditMode "Binary"

EmptyEntireFilePlease

Deletes all lines from the current file.

ElseDefineClasses

See DefineClasses

EndGroup

Terminates a begin-end conditional structure.

EndLoop

Terminates a loop. See ForEachLineIn

Filter filteralias

Name a fiter for pruning file searches.

FixEndOfLine

The quoted string which follows may be either dos or Unix to fix the end of line character conventions to match these systems. This command should be executed last of all, since cfengine appends new lines with the conventions of the system on which is was complied during edit operations.

ForEachLineIn quoted-filename

This marks the beginning of a for-loop which reads successive lines from a named file. The result is like using SetLine for each line in the file. Nested loops are not permitted.

GotoLastLine

Moves the file pointer to the last line in the current file.

HashCommentLinesContaining quoted-string

Add a # to the start of any line containing the quoted string.

HashCommentLinesMatching quoted-regex

Add a # to the start of any line exactly matching the quoted regular expression.

HashCommentLinesStarting quoted-string

Add a # to the start of any line starting with the quoted string.

IncrementPointer quoted-number

Increments the value (in lines) of the file pointer by the number of lines specified in the quoted string (as a denary number). e.g. "4". Negative values are equivalent to decrementing the pointer. If a request is made to increment/decrement outside of the file boundaries the pointer `bumps' into the boundary and remains there, i.e. either at start of file or end of file.

Inform quoted-string

Set to true or false, on or off to set inform level for this file. Default is off.

InsertFile quoted-string

Inserts the named file after the current line position in the file. This should be used in conjunction with a begin-end construction in order to avoid including the file every time cfengine is run. If the file does not exist, or cannot be opened, there is only a warning issued in verbose mode. Note if the file is empty, or if the current line pointer is not set, the file is inserted at the start of the file.

InsertLine quoted-string

Inserts the quoted string as a line at the current position in the file. After the insert, the file pointer is incremented by one so that subsequent inserted lines are placed after the first. This should probably be used in conjunction with the conditional begin-end tests to avoid lines being inserted on every run.

LocateLineMatching quoted-regex

Moves the current-position pointer to the start of the line matching the quoted regular expression. If there is no match, a warning is only issued in verbose mode, but all editing is immediately aborted. See also WarnIfNoLineMatching so that you can get an explicit warning, even out of verbose mode.

PercentCommentLinesContaining quoted-string

Add a % to the start of any line containing the quoted string.

PercentCommentLinesMatching quoted-regex

Add a % to the start of any line exactly matching the quoted regular.

PercentCommentLinesStarting quoted-string

Add a % to the start of any line starting with the quoted string.

Prepend quoted-string

Add a line containing the quoted string to the start of the file. This should be used in conjunction with the decision structures BeginGroupIfNoLineMatching and BreakIfLineMatches.

PrependIfNoLineMatching quoted-regex

A new version of the older PrependIfNoSuchLine with uses a regular expression instead of a literal string. The string prepended is the one set using SetLine.

PrependIfNoSuchLine quoted-string

Add a line containing the quoted string to the start of the file if the file doesn't contain the exact line already.

Recurse digit/inf

For recursive descents when editing whole file trees.

ReplaceLineWith quoted-string

Replace the line at the current position with the text in the quoted string. The file pointer remains pointing to this line after the change.

ReplaceAll quoted-regex With quoted-string

Replace all instances of strings matching the regular expression in the first quotes with the exact string in the second set of quotes, throughout the current file. Note that cfengine matches on a left to right basis, with the first match taking precedence, so if your regular expression matches text ambiguously it is the first occurrence which is replaced. For example, if you replace cf.* with CFENGINE and cfengine encounters a line hello cfengine cfengine, then this will be replaced with hello CFENGINE even though two possible strings match the regular expression. On the other hand if the expression is not ambiguous, say replacing cfengine with CFENGINE, then the result would be hello CFENGINE CFENGINE.

ReplaceLinesMatchingField quoted-number

This command replaces any lines in the current file with the current line set by SetLine or ForEachLineIn, if the lines are split into fields (e.g. the password file) separated by the SplitOn character (':' by default), and the corresponding fields match.

The idea behind this command was to be able to override global passwords (from a file which gets distributed) by new passwords in a local file. Rather than maintaining the files separately, this simply overrides the entries with the new ones.

Repository quoted string

This allows a local override of the Repository variable, on an item by item basis. If set to "off" or "none" it cancels the value of a global repository.

ResetSearch quoted-string

Sets the current-position pointer to the line number in the quoted string. EOF indicates the end of the file.

RunScript quoted-string

Executes the named script command. Before executing the script any edits are saved to disk. After the script has executed, cfengine reloads the file for any further editing operations. The script (which may be any executable program) is appended with two arguments: the name of the file which is being edited and the system hard class (e.g. sun4, ultrix etc.) of the system executing the script.

CAUTION: cfengine knows nothing about the success or failure of anything that is done during the execution of user scripts. This feature is to be used at the users own peril!

RunScriptIfLineMatching quoted-string

Executes the script named with the SetScript command only if the current file contains a line matching the quoted regular expression.

CAUTION: cfengine knows nothing about the success or failure of anything that is done during the execution of user scripts. This feature is to be used at the users own peril!

RunScriptIfNoLineMatching quoted-regex

Executes the script named with the SetScript command if the current file contains no line matching the quoted regular expression.

CAUTION: cfengine knows nothing about the success or failure of anything that is done during the execution of user scripts. This feature is to be used at the users own peril!

SetCommentStart quoted-string

Specify which string should be used for starting a comment using the commands CommentLineMatching and CommentLineStarting. The default is the hash symbol # followed by a single space.

SetCommentEnd quoted-string

Specify which string should be used for ending a comment using the commands CommentLineMatching and CommentLineStarting. The default is the empty string. For example, you could make C style comments by setting CommentStart to /* and comment end to */.

SetLine quoted-string

Sets a current line value which can be appended using AppendIfNoLineMatching using a regular expression.

SetScript quoted-string

Sets the name of a user-supplied script for editing the current file.

SlashCommentLinesContaining quoted-string

Add a // to the start of any line containing the quoted string.

SlashCommentLinesMatching quoted-regex

Add a // to the start of any line exactly matching the quoted regular expression.

SlashCommentLinesStarting quoted-string

Add a // to the start of any line starting with the quoted string.

SplitOn quoted-string

This defines a single character which is to be interpreted as a field separator for editing files with columns. The default value for this is :, as is used in the password and group files. It is used in conjunction with ReplaceLinesMatchingField.

Syslog quoted-string

Set to true or false, on or off to set inform level for this file. Default is off.

Umask quote mode

Set local umask for file creation and script execution.

UnCommentLinesContaining quoted-string

Uncomment all lines in file containing the quoted string as a substring. The comment delimiters are assumed to be those set using SetCommentStart and SetCommentEnd.

UnCommentLinesMatching quoted-regex

Uncomment all lines in file matching the quoted regular expression. The comment delimiters are assumed to be those set using SetCommentStart and SetCommentEnd.

UnCommentNLines quoted-string

Uncomments N lines starting from the current position, using the currently defined method for commenting. Note that the comment start and end symbols are removed independently, i.e. they are not matched, so that a comment may be spread over several lines. e.g. If using C style /* and */ comments, the command UnCommentNLines "3" would uncomment

 /* 1 */
 /* 2 */
 /* 3 */

and also

 /* 1
    2
    3 */

UnsetAbort quoted-string

Switches off the feature AbortAtLineMatching.

UseShell "false"

Normally cfengine uses a shell based exec function to run scripts during editing. This involves the inheritance of environment variables and path, which carries with it an inherent security risk. Setting this value to false causes execution to execute without an encapsulating shell.

WarnIfLineContaining quoted-string

Issue a warning if the quoted string is found as a substring of one or more lines in the file.

WarnIfLineMatching quoted-regex

Issue a warning if the quoted regular expression matches one or more lines in the file.

WarnIfLineStarting quoted-string

Issue a warning if the quoted string matches the start of one or more lines in the file.

WarnIfNoLineContaining quoted-string

Issue a warning if the quoted string is not contained in one or more lines in the file.

WarnIfNoLineMatching reg-ex

Issue a warning if the quoted regular expression does not match one or more lines in the file.

WarnIfNoLineStarting quoted-string

Issue a warning if the quoted string is not found at the start of one or more lines in the file.

WarnIfNoSuchLine quoted-regex

Issue a warning if the quoted regular expression does not match one or more lines in the file.

A limited number of operations can also be performed on purely binary files, e.g. compiled programs, in order to search for strings or viral code, or to modify strings within a program. Binary mode is a mutually exclusive, separate mode to normal editing. The limit on the size of binary files is set by editbinaryfilesize in control.

ReplaceAll regex With literal

Replaces occurrences of the matched regular expression with\ the provided literal text, only if the length of the literal substitute is less than or equal to the length of the located string. If the replacement string is shorter, it is padded with ascii spaces (character 32) by default. The padding character can be changed by setting BinaryPaddingChar in control. Padding with a null byte would lead to corruption of text within a program.

WarnIfContainsString regex/literal

Yields a warning if the literal string or regular expression matches. Cfengine first attempts a literal match and then a regular expression match.

WarnIfContainsFile filename

Yields a warning if the contents of the named file exactly match part of the file which is being edited. This can be used to search for binary data which cannot be typed directly into the cfengine program, e.g. virus signatures.

It is suggested that you use these editing functions with caution. Although all possible safeguards have been incorporated into them, it is still possible through carelessness to do damage to important files on your system. Always test editing programs carefully before committing them to your global site configuration.

files

The files facility allows you to touch (create), check for the existence, owner and permissions of files, change the permissions and test for setuid root programs.

• Syntax:
• Recursion:
• Directory permissions:
• home directive:
• Owner and group wildcards:
• Files linkchildren:
• touch:
• create:

Syntax

A files-statement can have several options. We can begin by examining the form of the statement in pseudo-code:

  files:

     classes::

        /file-object
                          mode=mode
                          owner=uid-list
                          group=gid-list
                          action=fixall/other-options/warnall
                          links=false/stop/traverse/follow/tidy

                          ignore=pattern
                          include=pattern
                          exclude=pattern
                          filter=filter alias

                          define=classlist
                          elsedefine=classlist

                          checksum=md5
                          flags=BSD flags
                          syslog=true/on/false/off
                          inform=true/on/false/off

An example would be the following:

   any::

      /var/spool/printQ  mode=0775  r=0 o=daemon g=daemon  act=fixdirs

The meaning of these item is sketched out below and becomes clearer on looking at a number of examples. Note that, each of the options below can be written in either upper or lower case and abbreviated by any unique abbreviation. A file object is interpreted as a directory if you write it in the following form: /directory-path/.. i.e. a trailing dot signifies a directory. This then becomes the same as the directory command.

/directory

This is the only obligatory part of a file action. This is a directory at which a file search should begin. This may be a single file or a directory. The recursion specifier may be used to force cfengine to descend into subdirectories in a controlled fashion, starting from this point, checking files there also. The wildcard home may also be used. See home directive.

mode=modestring

Specifies what the allowed permissions for files are. If cfengine finds that a file's mode is incorrect, the value of the action option determines what will be done about it. The modestring should consist of either a three digit octal numbers with +, - or = symbols, or a text string like that used by the command chmod. For instance: mode=u=rwx,og+rx would mean set the read/write and execute flags for the user (file owner) and add the read/execute flags for others and group bits. An example of the numerical form might be -002 which would mean that the read-for-others flag should either not be set or should be unset, depending on the action you choose. +2000 would mean that the setuid flag should be present or set, depending on the action. +2000,-002 would be a combination of these. The = sign sets to an absolute value, so =755 would set the file mode to mode 755.

flags=BSD flags

The free BSD Unices have additional filesystem flags which can be seton files. Refer to the BSD chflags documentation for this. For example,

   /tmp/flags.01  mode=0600 owner=0 group=0
                  flags=uappnd,uchg,uunlnk,nodump,opaque,sappnd,schg,sunlnk
                  action=touch

recurse=number/inf

This specifier tells cfengine whether or not to recurse into subdirectories. If the value is zero, only the named file or directory is affected. If the value is 1, it will open at most one level of subdirectory and affect the files within this scope. If the value is inf then cfengine opens all subdirectories and files beginning from the specified filename.See Recursion.

owner=owner list

This is a list of allowed owners, or uids by number, separated by commas. For example root,2,3,sysadm. In cases where you ask cfengine to fix the ownership automatically, the owner will be set to the first recogized owner in the list if and only if it is not one of the named uids in the list.

group=group list

This is a list of allowed groups, or gids by number, separated by commas. For example wheel,2,3,sysadm. In cases where you ask cfengine to fix the ownership automatically, the group will be set to the first recognized group in the list if and only if it is not one of the named gids in the list.

action=action

The action is one of the following keywords.

warnall warndirs warnplain
 fixall fixdirs fixplain
touch linkchildren create compress alert

The upper line results only in warnings being issued. The actions beginning `fix' prompt cfengine to fix encountered problems without bothering the user. No message is issued unless in verbose mode. The special features on the third line will be explained separately. Alert is like -print in the find command, it triggers on the existence of files which have not been ignored, excluded or filtered. This should normally be used together filter, in order to locate files of particular types.

include=wildcard/pattern

You can include this option several times to specify specific patterns which are to be included in the search. Once you specify one pattern you exclude all files not matching at least one of the patterns. The case be useful for restricting a search, or for modifying the permissions of only certain files.

exclude=wildcard/pattern

You can include this option several times to specify specific patterns which are to be excluded from the search. This overrides any patterns given in the include= list.

ignore

This works like the global ignore directive but here you may provide a private list of ignorable directories and files. Unlike include, exclude this affects the way cfengine parses directory trees.

links=stop/traverse/tidy

Normally cfengine does not descend into subdirectories which are pointed to by symbolic links. If you wish to force it to do so (without using the -l command line option) you may give this option the value true, or traverse, or follow. To specify no recursion you set the value false or stop. Note that the value set here in the cfengine program always overrides the value set by the -l command line option, so you can protect certain actions from this command line option by specifying a negative value here. If you specify no value here, the behaviour is determined by what you specify on the command line.

The value links=tidy has the same effect as the -L command line option except that here it may be specified per item rather than globally. Setting this value causes links which point to non-existent files to be deleted.

If the warn directive is used (for directories, plain files or both) then only a warning message is issued if the file being tested does not match the specification given. If the fix directives are used then cfengine does not issue a warning, it simply fixes the value silently. Non-existent files are created by the touch command. A directory may be touched (created) by writing the filename /a/b/c/. with a dot as the last character. (This may also be achieved with the directories directive, See directories.)

define=classlist

If a file operation results in action being taken to fix a file, the colon, comma or dot separated list of classes becomes defined. Warnings do not activate the classes.

checksum=md5/sha

If set this option causes cfengine to add a checksum for the named file to a database. Changes in the value of this checksum are then warned as a security issue. This should normally only be used to monitor binary files which one would not expect to change often. Note also that the use of this option can mean a significant performance penalty. The variable ChecksumDatabase should be set in control: to the filename of a database file which is used to cache checksum values. Note that it is also possible to use a database file for cfservd's remote copying by checksum. If you use the same file for both purposes you risk losing warnings. Security warning messages are issued only once and the value in the database is then changed to the new value of the file automatically i.e. the behaviour is similar to that of setuid root program detection, See ChecksumDatabase.

The default values are mode=+000, recurse=0, action=warnall and any owner or group is acceptable. The default for links is to not traverse links unless the -l option is set on the command line.

Recursion

The recursion specifier tells cfengine what to do, starting from /directory name. A value of r=0 means `no recursion' and any checking is limited only to the named file or directory. A value of r=inf implies unlimited recursion. Cfengine then descends into all subdirectories checking or setting the permissions of files until it `bottoms out' at a plain file. A value such as R=4 means descend recursively into subdirectories, but no more than four levels. This is a useful safety net in preventing unforeseen accidents. A recursive search also bottoms out on device boundaries and symbolic links (provided the -l option is not used).

Directory permissions

When you specify the permissions for a whole file tree, using the recursion specifier it is awkward to have to remember that directories must be executable. cfengine will do this for you automatically. If you specify that a file tree is to have a read flag set, cfengine will ensure that the corresponding execute flag is also set for directories which live in the tree. So the command

files:

  myclass::

      /dir  mode=a+rw r=inf fixall

would set all plain files to mode 644 and all directories to 755, that is read/write for everyone on plain files and read/write/execute for everyone on directories.

home directive

If you want to check the files of all the users who have their login areas on the current host, you can use a wildcard directive home instead of a directory name. In this case the file action iterates over all home directories physically on the current host. The home directories are, of course, located by searching for files which match

$(mountpattern)/$(homepattern)

i.e. the values which are specified in the control part of the program. For example the following line is a very useful service to ignorant users.

files:

  any::

    home mode=o-w r=inf act=fixall

It ensures automatically that no user has files which can be written to by other arbitrary users.

As a corollary to this, you may write something like

  any::

     home/www mode=a+r fixall

to specify a special subdirectory of every users' home directory. This statement would check that all of the files in users' world wide web directories were readable for everyone.

Owner and group wildcards

If you do not want to explicitly state the owner or group of a file you may simply omit the group or owner options.

  /file-object m=0664 r=inf

Files linkchildren

The linkchildren facility is almost identical to that already described under links. See Link Children. The only difference here is that the ownership and permissions on the links are set all in one operation. For example:

myclass::

   /local/lib/emacs m=0770 o=me g=mygroup act=linkchildren

touch

The touch facility creates a new file with the specified permissions and ownership, or corrects the permissions and ownership of an existing file, in addition to updating the time stamps.

myclass::

   /newfile mode=0644 action=touch

create

This is like touch except that an existing file's time stamps, permissions and ownership will not be modified if the file already exists. If the file does not exist, the attributes are set to the values specified, or to the default values of 0644.

filters

A filter is a way of selecting or pruning during a search over files or processes. Since filter rules could apply to several objects, cfengine allows you to define filter conditions as separate objects to be applied in different contexts.

Filter objects can be used in copy, editfiles, files, tidy and processes. In most cases one writes

.. filter=<i>filteralias</i>

{
..
Filter "filteralias"
..
}

files:

 /tmp filter=testfilteralias action=alert r=inf

Filters are defined in a separate section. Filters for files and processes are defined together. They differ only in the criteria they contain. Here is are examples of file filters:

Filters:

  { filteralias1

  Owner:     "mark|cell|motd"
  Group:     "ecg|mark"
  Mode:      "700"

  FromCtime: "date(2000,1,1,0,0,0)"    # absolute date
  ToCtime:   "now"

  FromMtime: "tminus(1,0,0,2,30,0)"    # relative "ago" from now
  ToMtime:   "inf"                     # end of time

  FromAtime: "date(1997,2,22,0,0,0)"
  ToAtime:   "inf"

  FromSize:  "10000"                   # File size interval
  ToSize:    "10mb"

  ExecRegex: "/usr/bin/file(.*ascii.*)"# Result from "files" command

  Type:      "dir|link"                # reg|link|dir|socket|fifo|door|char|block

  NameRegex: ".*.asc"                  # regex matching file name

  IsSymLinkTo: "/dev/null"             # True if file is a link to object name regex

  Result:    "Type"                    # Result which shouldbe returned

  }

 #########################################

  { testfilteralias2

  ExecProgram: "/bin/ls $(this)"       # True if the program returns true. $(this) is the current object
  }

 #########################################

  { testfilteralias3

  Owner: "mark"
  }

Filters are evaluated like classes. In fact, the filtering works by evaluating the class attributes for each file.

File filters:

Owner:

and Group can use numerical id's or names, or "none" for users or groups which are undefined in the system passwd/group file.

Mode: applies only to file objects. It shares syntax with the mode= strings in the files command. This test returns true if the bits which are specified as `should be set' are indeed set, and those which are specified as `should not be set' are not set.

Atime:,Ctime:,Mtime:

apply only to file objects. These specify ranges From and To. If the file's time stamps lie in the specified range, this returns true. Times are specfied by a six component vector

(year,month,day,hour,minutes,seconds)

This may be evaluated as two functions: date() or tminus() which give absolute times and times relative to the current time respectively. In addition, the words now and inf may be used. e.g.

  FromCtime: "date(2000,1,1,0,0,0)"   # absolute date
  ToCtime:   "now"

  FromMtime: "tminus(1,0,0,2,30,0)"     # relative "ago" from now
  ToMtime:   "inf"                     # end of time

Type:

applies only to file objects may be a list of file types which are to be matched. The list should be separated by the OR symbol `|', since these types are mutually exclusive. The possible values are currently

reg|link|dir|socket|fifo|door|char|block

ExecRegex:

matches the test string against the output of the specified command.

NameRegex:

matches the name of the file with a regular expression.

IsSymLinkTo:

applies only when the file object $(this) is a symbolic link. It is true if the regular expression matches the contents of the link.

ExecProgram:

matches if the command returns successfully (with return code 0). Note that this feature introduces an implicit dependency on the command being called. This might be exploitable as a security weakness by advanced intruders.

Result:

specifies the way in which the above elements are combined into a single filter.

Process filters:

Owner

process owner UID (quoted regex)

PID:

process ID (quoted regex)

PPID:

parent process ID (quoted regex)

PGID:

process group ID (quoted regex)

RSize:

resident size (quoted regex)

VSize:

virtual memory size (quoted regex)

Status:

status (quoted regex)

Command:

CMD or COMMAND fields (quoted regex)

(From/To)TTime:

Total elasped time in TIME field (accumulated time)

(From/To)STime:

Starting time for process in STIME or START field (accumulated time)

TTY:

terminal type, or none (quoted regex)

Priority:

PRI or NI field (quoted regex)

Threads:

NLWP field for SVR4 (quoted regex)

Result:

logical combination of above returned by filter (quoted regex)

  { filteralias

  FromSTime: "date(2000,11,18,0,0,0)"
  ToSTime:   "now"
  }

  { filteralias

  FromTTime:  "accumulated(0,0,0,1,0,0)"
  ToTTime:    "accumulated(0,0,0,20,0,0)"
  }

• Complete filter examples:

Complete filter examples

Here is an example filter to search for all files which are either directories or links, or any kind of file owned by mark, in group cfengine.

control:

 actionsequence = ( files )

files:

 /tmp       filter=testfilteralias action=alert r=inf
 /cfengine  filter=testfilteralias action=fixall r=inf mode=644

filters:

  { testfilteralias

  Owner:     "mark"
  Group:     "cfengine"
  Type:      "dir|link"

  Result:    "Type|(Owner.Group)"  # Both owner AND group required correct
  }

control:

 actionsequence = ( files )

files:

 /tmp       filter=testfilteralias action=alert r=inf
 /cfengine  filter=testfilteralias action=fixall r=inf mode=644

filters:

  { testfilteralias

  ExecRegex: "/bin/file (.*ELF.*)"

  Result: "ExecRegex"
  }

control:

 actionsequence = ( processes )

filters:

  { filteralias
  FromSTime: "date(2000,11,0,0,0,0)"
  ToSTime:   "date(2000,11,30,0,0,0)"
  TTY: ".*pt.*"
  Result: "TTY.STime"
  }

processes:

 "." filter=filteralias action=warn

groups/classes

The groups action (equivalently referred to as classes as of version 1.4.0) is used to define classes which stand for groups of hosts. If you use the NIS (network information service) facility for defining netgroups then this idea will already be familiar to you and you can probably use your already-defined netgroups in cfengine.

To define a group, you simply make a list and assign it a name. Here is an example of the syntax:

groups:

   science = ( saga tor odin )

   packages = ( saga )

   AllHomeServers   = ( saga )
   AllBinaryServers = ( saga )

   OIH_servers = ( saga )
   OIH_clients = ( tor odin )

   notthis = ( !this )

   ip_in_range = ( IPRange(129.0.0.1-15) )  # host is in ip address range
   ip_in_range = ( IPRange(129.0.0.1/24) )  # host is in ip address range (CIDR notation)

To include a list of hosts from a NIS netgroup, you use the + symbol, or the +@ construction. For example:

groups:

   science = ( +science-allhosts )

   physics = ( +physics-allhosts )

   physics_theory = ( +@physics-theory-sun4 dirac feynman schwinger )

Using an enormous netgroup does not use up any space. A group declaration results in the storage of only the class name regardless of how many hosts are in the list. The rule is that the left hand side of the assignment becomes defined (true) if the list on the right hand side includes the host which is parsing the file -- i.e. $(host).

In some cases your netgroups will not correspond exactly to the list you want, but it might be more convenient to use a netgroup except for certain hosts. You can `undefine' or remove hosts from the netgroup list by using the minus `-' symbol. For example:

group = ( +mynetgroup -specialhost -otherhost )

which means, of course, all hosts in netgroup mynetgroup except for specialhost and otherhost. Finally, you may also subtract two netgroups in the following manner.

group = ( +bignetgroup -smallnetgroup )

The `minus' command effectively eliminates its members from bignetgroup if they exist within that group. If none of the hosts in smallnetgroup exist in bignetgroup then the command has no effect.

Groups may now contain previously defined cfengine groups too. This allows one class to inherit the attributes of another class, for instance:

  AllSun4Hosts   = ( sonny sunny solar stella )
  AllUltrixHosts = ( ully olly wally golly )

  AllBSD = ( AllSun4Hosts AllUltrixHosts )

The classes on the right hand side are effectively ORed together into the left hand side. This enables complex classes to be constructed from several other basic classes, e.g.

  SpecialTimes = ( Hr00 Monday Day1 )

which evaluates to true every day when it between 00:00 hours and 00:59, all day Monday and all day on the first day of every month.

Finally, you can define groups (strictly classes) by the result of a shell command. A shell command or program is deemed to be `true' if it exits with a status of zero, i.e. it calls exit(0). Any other value is taken to be false. You can include shell commands as the members of groups in order to define classes based on the outcomes of your own scripts by enclosing the script in single or double quotes:

   have_cc = ( '/bin/test -f /usr/ucb/cc' )

The class have_cc will then be defined if the shell command returns true. Of course, you can put any script or program in the single quotes as long as they adhere to the convention that zero exit status means true. If you have several members which are shell commands, then the effect is to make the class the logical OR of the scripts' results.

As of version 1.4.0, you may use the synonym classes for groups.

homeservers

The homeservers declaration need only be used if you are using cfengine's model for mounting NFS filesystems. This declaration informs hosts of which other hosts on the network possess filesystems containing home directories (login areas) which client hosts should mount.

A sample homeserver declaration looks like this:

homeservers:

   Physics::  einstein
   Math::     riemann euler

The meaning of this declaration is the following. Any host which finds itself to be a member of the classes on the left hand side of the assignment need to mount all home directory resources from the hosts on the right hand side of the assignment. The pattern variable homepattern is used to determine which resources are home directories in the list of mountables. See mountables.

Let us consider an example in which homepattern is set to the wildcard value home? and the mountables list is given by

mountables:

   einstein:/mysite/einstein/home1
   einstein:/mysite/einstein/home2  mountoptions=soft,bg,intr,rsize=8192,wsize=8192
   riemann:/mysite/riemann/local    readonly=true
   euler:/mysite/euler/home1

Any host in the group Physics would now want to mount all home directories from the host einstein. There are two of these. Both the filesystems listed for einstein match the homepattern variable since they end in home?. cfengine would therefore take this to mean that all hosts in Physics should mount both of these filesystems.

Hosts in Math, on the other hand, should mount only homedirectories from the hosts riemann and euler. There is only a single filesystem on riemann and it does not match homepattern, so it is not mounted. On euler there is a match, so this filesystem will be added to the appropriate hosts.

Cfengine picks out home directory resources from the mountables list by trying to match the homepattern variable, starting from the end of the directory name. You do not therefore have to use the designation /site/host/home? but this is a simple choice and is highly recommended.

ignore

When you specify a recursive search as part of a files, tidy or copy action, you would sometimes like to exclude certain directories from the list of sub directories. In most cases you will want to do this on a per-command basis (see the pages for these actions separately), but you can also make a global ignore list. This can be accomplished by adding the directory to the ignore-list. The syntax is

  ignore:

     wildcards/directories/filenames

For example:

ignore:

   any::

      #
      # Prevent tidying .X11 directories in /tmp where
      # window managers write semaphores
      #

      .X11

      #
      # Don't tidy emacs locks
      #

      !*
      /local/lib/gnu/emacs/lock/
      /local/tmp
      /local/bin/top
      /local/lib/tex/fonts
      /local/etc
      /local/www
      /local/mutils/etc/finger.log

None of the above directories will be checked or entered during recursive descents unless a specific command is initiated to search those directories with their names as the top of the search tree.

A handy tip if you are tidying /tmp recursively is to include the directory .X11 here. This directory is used by the X-windows system and deleting it while a window manager has an open session can cause the user some trouble.

Ignore refers to all recursive searches in tidy, files, copy and links.

import

To break up a large configuration file into smaller files you can use the include directive. This conditionally reads in files if the class on the left hand side of the assignment matches the host parsing the file. This enables also a variety of cfengine configuration scripts to read in a standard set of default settings. The syntax of the statement is:

import:

   any::

      cf.global_classes


   linux::

      cf.linux_classes

Note that, if you define variables in an imported file they will not be defined for operations in their parent files. This because cfengine reads in all the import files after the main file has been parsed--not at the place where you call import in your script. This means that variables or macros defined in imported files are only defined after the main program. Variables from earlier files are inherited by later includes, but not vice-versa.

interfaces

 interfaces:

   classes::

     interfacename netmask=netmask broadcast=broadcast

If you have more than one network interface, or you do not wish to use the default interface name, this section may be used to define further interfaces to be checked. This feature can replace the older method of setting netmask and broadcast address in control:. If the netmask variable is not set, cfengine ignores the default interface configuration. Example:

  interfaces:

    "le1" netmask=255.255.255.0 broadcast=ones
    "le2" netmask=255.255.255.0 broadcast=ones

links

The symbolic links function is one of the greatest plusses in cfengine as a system administration tool. It allows you to do two things: check single links for correctness and consistency (or make them if they do not exist), and check or make links to every file in a designated directory. This latter feature is called multiple linking or linking children. The linkchildren feature is also available from the files action See files. The syntax of a link item is:

  from-link ->[!] to-object
 or
  from-link +>[!] to-object

            type=symbolic/absolute/abs/hard/relative/rel
            copy=pattern
            recurse=number/inf/0
            copytype=checksum/ctime
            include=pattern
            exclude=pattern
            ignore=pattern
            action=silent
            deadlinks=kill/force
            define=classlist
            nofile=kill/force
            syslog=true/on/false/off
            inform=true/on/false/off

The special variable $(binserver) can be used in links.

• Single links:
• Multiple Links:
• Link Children:
• Relative and absolute links:
• Hard links:

Single links

To define a single link, you create an entry of the following form:

links:

  class::

     linkname -> object_to_link_to
     linkname -> ./relative_link
     linkname -> ../relative_link

If links exists and point to their intended destinations then no action is taken. If a link exists but points incorrectly then a warning is issued, unless the pling operator ! is given, in which case the correct value is forced. If the link exists and points to a file which does not exist a warning is issued unless the command line option -L is used, in which case the link is deleted.

Here is an example of some valid link statements.

links:

  Physics.sun4::

   /usr/local       -> /$(site)/$(host)/local
   /home            -> /$(site)/$(host)/u1
   /etc/sendmail.cf -> /usr/local/mail/etc/global-sendmail.cf

   /usr/lib/sendmail ->! /local/lib/sendmail

cfengine makes any directories which are required leading up to the link name on the left hand side of the arrow automatically. In the last example the `pling' forces cfengine to make the link even if a file for link exists previously. Plain files are saved by appending .cfsaved to the filename, or by moving to a repository, whereas old links are removed. The same effect can be enforced globally using the -E option, but only if the program is run interactively. (In this case a prompt is issued to make sure that you wish to use such a big hammer on your system!)

The link operation accepts a number of parameters

type=hard/relative/absolute

If the link type is hard, a hard link is created See Hard links. Symbolic links may specify two special types. If relative is selected, and the `to' object is an absolute path name, the link name will be rewritten as a pathname relative to the source file, using . and .. to move relative to the current directory. For instance, a link from /usr/local/file to /usr/file would be linked as ./../file. If the `to' object is already relative, this has no effect.

If absolute is specified, cfengine will try to resolve the true path location of the `to' object, expanding any symbolic links or dots in the path name, up to a maximum of four levels of symbolic links.

copy=pattern

This option can be repeated any number of times to build up a list of filenames or wildcards which are to be copied rather than linked symbolically. The copy is made on an age-comparison basis. A global variable may also be set to invoke this feature See copylinks. Directories cannot be copied in this way.

copytype=checksum/ctime

This specifies the basis for deciding whether to update a file which is to be copied instead of linked See copy.

nofile=kill/force

This decides what happens to links which point to non-existent files. The default action is to remove such links, or refuse to create them. By setting the force option you can force cfengine to make symbolic links to files which do not exist. This is useful for setting up links to filesystems which are not permanently mounted.

exclude=pattern

This option can be repeated any number of times to build up a list of filenames or wildcards which are to be excluded from the linking process. A global variable may also be set to invoke this feature See excludelinks.

ignore

This works like the global ignore directive but here you may provide a private list of ignorable directories and files. Unlike include, exclude this affects the way cfengine parses directory trees.

recurse=number/inf

This option can only be used with multiple link operations See Multiple Links. If this option is specified, cfengine links only non-directory objects. Directories are instead created and links within those directories are also created. The value of this option specifies the maximum number of levels to which cfengine should recursively descend a link tree. inf means infinite recursion. Cfengine also ignores files and directories in the ignore list See ignore.

define=classlist

If a link is created or replaced, the colon, comma or dot separated list of classes becomes defined.

The final feature of the links facility is connected to the use of the cfengine model for mounting NFS filesystems. In particular it concerns the variable $(binserver). The easiest way to understand this feature is to illustrate a couple of examples. Consider the following:

links:

   any::

      /local -> /${site}/${binserver}/local

The result of this command is quite different depending on which host is executing it. The variable $(site) clearly has a fixed value, but the variable $(binserver) might expand to any valid binary server for the host executing the program. See binservers. The procedure cfengine adopts is to go through its list of mountables, keeping only those mountable resources which belong to defined binary servers for the current host. It then attempts to match a filesystem by substituting $(binserver) with each of its valid binservers in turn and it matches the first one binary server which yields an existing file.

Note that every host is a binary server for itself, so that the value of $(binserver) which has absolute priority is alway the same as the value of $(host). This ensures that the link will always be made to a local filesystem if the rules of the model are upheld.

Multiple Links

With the link symbol +>, you opt to link all of the files in a directory to corresponding files in another directory. This procedure is sometimes useful for installing software. In the example

links:

  myclass::

     /usr/local/bin +>  /usr/local/lib/perl/bin
     /opt           +>! /local

every file in the directory /usr/local/lib/perl/bin is linked symbolically to a corresponding file in /usr/local/bin. The `pling' character forces cfengine to replace old links or plain files already existing. Old links are removed, whereas old files are saved by appending .cfsaved to the filename See repository.

Each time cfengine runs it goes through all of the files in the directory concerned and checks the appropriate link accordingly. If new files appear, new links will be added. If a file disappears but the link to it remains, a warning will be issued, unless the -L command line option is used, in which case the link is deleted.

Link Children

The linkchildren directive is a closely related to the cfengine model for NFS filesystems. It is a way of making links which embodies a rudimentary kind of `intelligence'.

Consider the following:

links:

   any::

      /usr/local/lib/emacs +> linkchildren

The word linkchildren automatically tells cfengine that it should look for an appropriate file to link to on a binary server for the current host. The exact meaning of the above statement is as follows. cfengine begins searching though the list of mountable resources, discarding any filesystems which do not belong to valid binary servers. It looks for a filesystem ending in `emacs' (the last link of the left hand side). If all is well, these file systems are already mounted and they can be searched. If no resource is found ending in `emacs', we go to the next link lib and look for a filesystem ending in `lib'. If this is not found we go to local and so on. When a match is made, cfengine then tries to locate the file by checking whether it exists relative to the matched filesystem. For example, suppose `local' matched with host:/site/host/local. It would then try to locate host:/site/host/local/lib/emacs and link all of the children therein to the local file directory /usr/local/lib/emacs.

Here is another example which makes reference to the cfengine model for mounting NFS filesystems. Suppose you have a host with some spare disk space. You want to mount /usr/local from the binary architecture server, but you also want to use the disk you have locally. The following lines

links:

   electron::

      /$(site)/electron/local +> linkchildren

   any::

      /usr/local              -> /$(site)/$(binserver)/local

have the effect of creating a directory /$(site)/electron/local and filling it with links to all of the files and directories on the binary server's mounted filesystem. It results in an exact copy (by linkage) on the local disk, but does not use up your local disk space. The space you have remaining could, for example, be used for software with a special license for that host. The second link links /usr/local to the `nearest' binary server. But the nearest binary server is always $(host) which means this evaluates to a file which now exists because of the first command, so on the host `electron' the directory /usr/local ends up being a link to /$(site)/electron/local which is full of links to the binary server.

If you've caught your breath after that mouthful you probably have mixed feelings about creating a bunch of links in this way. What happens if the files they point to are removed? Then you are left with a lot of useless links. Actually this is no problem for cfengine, since you can ask cfengine to simply remove links which point to non-existent files See files. Nevertheless, this feature clearly requires some caution and is mainly a spice for advanced users of the cfengine model.

Relative and absolute links

When specifying symbolic linking, you can ask cfengine to change the link type to be either relative to the source or to be an absolute path. What this means is the following. Consider the following link:

   /var/tmp/cfengine -> /local/cfengine

If we add the option type=relative, then instead of creating a link which points to /local/cfengine, the link is created pointing to the location

  ./../../local/cfengine

In other words, the link is relative to the calling directory /var/tmp.

If a link is specified as being absolute with the option type=absolute, then cfengine attempts to resolve to value of the link so as to be the true path of the target. If the target name contains a symbolic link, then this is expanded as far as possible to give the true path to the file. For example, if /local is really a link to /site/myhost/local then the link would point to /site/myhost/local/cfengine.

Hard Links

Cfengine will also allow you to create hard links to regular files. A hard link is in every way identical to the original file, it merely has a different name (technically, it is a duplicate inode). To create a hard link you use the link-option type=hard. For example:

links:

   /directory/newname -> /directory/othername type=hard

Cfengine will not create hard links to directories or other special files. This is always a slightly dubious practice and is best avoided anyway. POSIX says that the hard link can be on a different device to the file it points to, but both BSD and System 5 restrict hard links to be on the same device as their predecessors. Cfengine has no policy on this, but--in the theoretical case in which the hard link and the predecessor were on different file systems--it becomes near impossible to determine with certainly between a hard link and a very similar regular file, and thus cfengine issues a warning in verbose mode about this eventuality. Provided both link and predecessor are on the same filesystem cfengine determines the status of hard links by comparing the device and inode numbers of the file pointed to.

mailserver

The mailserver declaration need only be used if you are using cfengine's model for mounting NFS filesystems. This declaration informs hosts of which NFS filesystem contains mail for its users. All hosts apart from the mail-host itself must then mount the mail spool directory across the network. The declaration looks like this:

mailserver:

   class::      mailhost:/var/spool/mail

The result of the mailcheck command in the action-sequence is now to mount the filesystem /var/spool/mail on the host mailhost. This action is carried out on any machine which does not already have that filesystem mounted.

The mail spool directory is mounted, by default, onto the official mail spool directory for the system which is parsing the program. In other words, on an HPUX system, the spool directory is mounted on /usr/mail by default, whereas on a Sun system it would be mounted on /var/spool/mail. The default location can be changed by using the resource file. See cfrc resource file.

miscmounts

If you do not use the cfengine model for statically mounting NFS filesystems (or if there are filesystems which do not naturally fall into the bounds of that model) then you can still statically mount miscellaneous filesystems using a statement of the form:

miscmounts:

   class::

      infohost:source-directory destination mode

      infohost:source-directory destination mode=mode

For example

   physics::

    # old syntax

      libraryserver:/$(site)/libraryserver/data1
                          /$(site)/libraryserver/data1 ro

    # consistent syntax

      libraryserver:/$(site)/libraryserver/data2
                          /$(site)/libraryserver/data2 mode=ro

      host:/foo /foo mode=rw,bg,hard,intr

This statement would mount the directory /$(site)/libraryserver/data physically attached to host libraryserver onto a directory of the same name on all hosts in the group physics. The modes ro and rw signify read-only and read-write respectively. If no mode is given, read-write is assumed.

mountables

The mountables declaration need only be used if you are using cfengine's model for mounting NFS filesystems. This declaration informs hosts of what filesystem resources are available for mounting. This list is used in conjunction with binservers and homeservers to determine which filesystems a given host should mount, according to the cfengine model.

The syntax of the list is:

mountables:

   class::
       "filesystem to mount"
	   readonly=false/off/true/on
	   mountoptions=nfs-options

mountables:

   class::

   server:/site/server/u1
   server:/site/server/local
   linuxhost:/site/linuxhost/local
   linuxhost:/site/linuxhost/u1

Notice that binary and home-directory filesystems are mixed freely here. Cfengine determines which of the entries are homedirectories using the homepattern variable.

Every time you add a disk or a mountable partition to your network, you should add the partition to the list of mountables.

NOTE: This list is read in order, top down. Cfengine looks for the first filesystem matching a given binary server when expanding the variable $(binserver), so sometimes the ordering of filesystems matters.

This list can be accessed in editfiles, to allow straightforward configuration of the automounter, using the command AutomountDirectResources.

processes

Using the processes facility, you can test for the existence of processes, signal (kill) processes and optionally restart them again. Cfengine opens a pipe from the system ps command and searches through the output from this command using regular expressions to match the lines of output from ps. The regular expression does not have to be an exact match, only a substring of the process line. The form of a process command is

processes:

    "quoted regular expression"

                        restart "shell command"
                        useshell=true/false/dumb
                        owner=restart-uid
                        group=restart-gid
                        chroot=directory
                        chdir=directory
                        umask=mask

                        signal=signal name
                        matches=number
                        define=classlist
                        action=signal/do/warn/bymatch
                        include=literal
                        exclude=literal
                        syslog=true/on/false/off
                        inform=true/on/false/off

    SetOptionString "quoted option string"

By default, the options sent to ps are "-aux" for BSD systems and "-ef" for system 5. You can use the SetOptionString command to redefine the option string. Cfengine assumes only that the first identifiable number on each line is the process identifier for the processes, so you must not choose options for ps which change this basic requirement (this is not a problem in practice). Cfengine reads the output of the ps-command normally only once, and searches through it in memory. The process table is only re-consulted if SetOptionString is called. The options have the following meanings:

signal=signal name

This option defines the name of a signal which is to be sent to all processes matching the quoted regular expression. If this option is omitted, no signal is sent. The signal names have the usual meanings. The full list, with largely standardized meanings, is

   hup       1   hang-up
   int       2   interrupt
   quit      3   quit
   ill       4   illegal instruction
   trap      5   trace trap
   iot       6   iot instruction
   emt       7   emt instruction
   fpe       8   floating point exception
   kill      9   kill signal
   bus      10   bus error
   segv     11   segmentation fault
   sys      12   bad argument to system call
   pipe     13   write to non existent pipe
   alrm     14   alarm clock
   term     15   software termination signal
   urg      16   urgent condition on I/O channel
   stop     17   stop signal (not from tty)
   tstp     18   stop from tty
   cont     19   continue
   chld     20   to parent on child exit/stop
   gttin    21   to readers pgrp upon background tty read
   gttou    22   like TTIN for output if (tp->t_local&LTOSTOP)
   io       23   input/output possible signal
   xcpu     24   exceeded CPU time limit
   xfsz     25   exceeded file size limit
   vtalrm   26   virtual time alarm
   prof     27   profiling time alarm
   winch    28   window changed
   lost     29   resource lost (eg, record-lock lost)
   usr1     30   user defined signal 1
   usr2     31   user defined signal 2

Note that cfengine will not attempt to signal or restart processes 0 to 3 on any system since such an attempt could bring down the system. The only exception is that the hangup (hup) signal may be sent to process 1 (init) which normally forces init to reread its terminal configuration files.

restart "shell command"

Note the syntax: there is no equals sign here. If the keyword `restart' appears, then the next quoted string is interpreted as a shell command which is to be executed after any signals have been sent. This command is only issued if the number of processes matching the specified regular expression is zero, or if the signal sent was signal 9 (sigkill) or 15 (sigterm) , i.e. the normal termination signals. This could be used to restart a daemon for instance. Cfengine executes this command and waits for its completion so you should normally only use this feature to execute non-blocking commands, such as daemons which dissociate themselves from the I/O stream and place themselves in the background. Some unices leave a hanging pipe on restart (they never manage to detect the end of file condition). This occurs on POSIX.1 and SVR4 popen calls which use wait4. For some reason they fail to find and end-of-file for an exiting child process and go into a deadlock trying to read from an already dead process. This leaves a zombie behind (the parent daemon process which forked and was supposed to exit) though the child continues. A way around this is to use a wrapper script which prints the line "cfengine-die" to STDOUT after restarting the process. This causes cfengine to close the pipe forcibly and continue. Cfengine places a timeout on the restart process and attempts to clean up zombies, but you should be aware of this possibility.

owner=,group=

Sets the process uid and gid (setuid,gid) for processes which are restarted. This applies only to cfengine run by root.

chroot

Changes the process root directory of the restarted process, creating a `sandbox' which the process cannot escape from. Best used together with a change of owner, since a root process can break out of such a confinement in principle.

chdir

Change the current working directory of the restarted process.

useshell=true/false/dumb

When restarting processes, cfengine normally uses a shell to interpret and execute the restart command. This has inherent security problems associated with it. If you set this option to false, cfengine executes restart commands without using a shell. This is recommended, but it does mean that you cannot use any shell operators or features in the restart command-line.

Some programs (like cron) do not handle I/O properly when they fork their daemon parts, this causes a zombie process and normally hangs cfengine. By choosing the value `dumb' for this, cfengine ignores all output from a program and does not use a startup shell. This prevents programs like cron from hanging cfengine.

matches=number

This option may be used to set a maximum, minimum or exact number of matches. If cfengine doesn't find a number of matches to the regular expression which is in accordance with this value it signals a warning. The <, > symbols are used to specify upper and lower limits. For example,

  matches=<6  # warn number of matches is greater than or equal to 6
  matches=1   # warn if not exactly 1 matching process
  matches=>2  # warn if there are less than or equal to 2 matching processes

include=literal

Items listed as includes provide an extra level of selection after the regular expression matches have been expanded. If you include one include option, then only lines containing one or more of the literal strings or wildcards will be matched.

exclude=literal

Process lines containing literal strings or wildcards in exclude statements are not matched. Excludes are processed after regular expression matching and after includes.

define=classlist

The colon, command or dot separated list of classes becomes activated if the number of regular expression matches is non zero.

action=signal/do/warn

The default value of this option is to silently send a signal (if one was defined using the signal option) to matching processes. This is equivalent to setting the value of this parameter to signal or do. If you set this option to warn, cfengine sends no signal, but prints a message detailing the processes which match the regular expression. If the option is set to bymatch, then signals are only sent to the processes if the matches criteria fail.

Here is an example script which sends the hang-up signal to cron, forcing it to reread its crontab files:

processes:

   "cron" signal=hup

Here is a second example which may be used to restart the nameservice on a solaris system:

processes:

   solaris::

       "named" signal=kill restart "/usr/sbin/in.named"

A more complex match could be used to look for processes belonging to a particular user. Here is a script which kills ftp related processes belonging to a particular user who is known to spend the whole day FTP-ing files:

control:

    actionsequence = ( processes )

  #
  # Set a kill signal here for convenience
  #

    sig = ( kill )

  #
  # Better not find that dumpster here!
  #

    matches = ( 1 )

processes:

   #
   #  Look for Johnny Mnemonic trying to dump his head, user = jmnemon
   #

   ".*jmnemon.*ftp.*" signal=$(sig) matches=<$(matches) action=$(do)

   # No mercy!

The regular expression .* matches any number of characters, so this command searches for a line containing both the username and something to do with ftp and sends these processes the kill signal.

You can arrange for signals to be sent, only if the number of matches fails the test. The action=bymatch option is used for this. For instance, to kill process `XXX' only if the number of matches is greater than 20, one would write:

processes:

"XXX" matches=<20  action=bymatch signal=kill

See also filters See filters, for more complex searches.

required

This is a synonym for disks, See disks. This action tests for the existence of a file or filesystem. It should be called after all NFS filesystems have been mounted. You may use the special variable $(binserver) here.

  required:

    /filesystem freespace=size-limit define=class-list(,:.)

Files or filesystems which you consider to be essential to the operation of the system can be declared as `required'. Cfengine will warn if such files are not found, or if they look funny.

Suppose you mount your filesystem /usr/local via NFS from some binary server. You might want to check that this filesystem is not empty! This might occur if the filesystem was actually not mounted as expected, but failed for some reason. It is therefore not enough to check whether the directory /usr/local exists, one must also check whether it contains anything sensible.

Cfengine uses two variables: sensiblesize and sensiblecount to figure out whether a file or filesystem is sensible or not. You can change the default values of these variables (which are 1000 and 2 respectively) in the control section. See control.

If a file is smaller than sensiblesize or does not exist, it fails the `required' test. If a directory does not exist, or contains fewer than sensiblecount files, then it also fails the test and a warning is issued.

required:

   any::

      /$(site)/$(binserver)/local

If you set the freespace variable to a value (the default units are kilobytes, but you may specify bytes or megabytes), e.g.

required:

  /site/host/home1 freespace=50mb define=dotidy
  /site/host/home2 freespace=10% define=dotidy

then cfengine will warn when the filesystem concerned has less than this amount of free space. By adding a define tag, you can switch on any number of classes if this happens. This allows you to activate special measures for dealing with a filesystem which is in danger of becoming full.

resolve

The file /etc/resolv.conf specifies the default nameserver for each host, as well as the local domain name. This file can also contain other information, but these are the only two things cfengine currently cares about. In specifying nameservers you should use the dotted numerical form of the IP addresses since your system may not understand the text form if it is not correctly configured. You may list as many nameservers as you wish, with the default server at the top of the list. The resolver normally ignores entries if you add more than three. The statement:

resolve:

  mygroup::

     129.240.22.35
     129.240.22.222
     129.240.2.3

declares a list of nameservers for hosts in the group or class mygroup. When you add the resolve command to the actionsequence, this declaration together with the domain variable (set here to uio.no) results in a /etc/resolv.conf file of the form:

domain uio.no
nameserver 129.240.22.35
nameserver 129.240.22.222
nameserver 129.240.2.3

Note that the resolve action does not delete anything from the file /etc/resolv.conf. It adds nameservers which do not previously exist and reorders the lines of servers which do exist.

As of version 1.3.11, you may use a quoted string to add non-nameserver lines to this file. For example:

resolve:

  mygroup::

     129.240.22.35
     129.240.22.222
     "# Comment line"
     "order bind, files"

If the line begins with a non-numeric character, the word `nameserver' is not added to the line.

shellcommands

Cfengine focuses on fairly simple minded tasks in order to be as general as possible. In many cases you will therefore want to write a script to do something special on your system. You can still take advantage of the classes you have defined by executing these scripts or shell commands from this section.

The syntax is simply to quote the command you wish to be executed.

shellcommands:

  "command-string"

          timeout=seconds
          useshell=true/false
          umask=octal number
          owner=uid
          group=gid
          define=class-list
          background=false/true
          chdir=directory
          chroot=directory
          preview=true/false

The user and group ID's of the process can be set to restrict the permissions of the shellcommand to another user only if cfengine is executed by root. If you set the optional timeout string, then cfengine will abort the shellcommand if it exceeds the specified time-limit in seconds. This can be useful for avoiding situations caused by hung network connections etc.

Variable substitution works within the strings. Here are some examples.

shellcommands:

   sun4::

       "/usr/lib/find/updatedb"

   AllHomeServers.Sunday::

       "/dir/noseyparker /$(site)/$(host)/u1 $(sysadm) nomail"

   AllBinaryServers.sun4.Saturday::

      "/usr/etc/catman -w -M /usr/local/man"
      "/usr/etc/catman -w -M /usr/local/X11R5/man"
      "/usr/etc/catman -w -M /usr/man"
      "/usr/etc/catman -w -M /usr/local/gnu/man"

If you need to write more advanced scripts, which make detailed use of the classes defined by cfengine, use the $(allclasses) variable to send a complete list of classes to your script in the format

CFALLCLASSES=class1:class2:class3...

This variable is kept up-to-date at any given time with only the classes which are defined. The command line option -u or --use-env can be used to define an environment variable which will be inherited by all scripts and contains the same information. This is not the standard approach, since some systems cannot cope with this rapid change of environment and generate a Bus Error.

Commands can be iterated over variable lists, provided there is at least one space between each variable. For example:

control:

      actionsequence =
         (
         shellcommands
         )

 var1 = ( a:b:c )
 var2 = ( x:y:z )

shellcommands:

   "/bin/echo $(var1) $(var2)"

This iterates over all values of the list variables. See Iterating over lists. If you are iterating over a list, the timeout applies to each separate iteration, not to the sum of all the iterations.

The chroot option changes the process root directory of the command, creating a `sandbox' which the process cannot escape from. Best used together with a change of owner, since a root process can break out of such a confinement in principle. The chdir option changes the current working directory of the restarted process.

The preview option means that the shellcommand will also be executed during the --dry-run (-n) options. This allows cfengine to be more aware of the results of scripts which define classes. This option should be used with care. Scripts should conform to the protocol of not executing unnecessary commands when the classes opt_dry_run is defined.

tidy

The tidy function is used to delete (remove permanently) unwanted files from a system. It is useful for tidying up in /tmp or cleaning out core files from users' home directories. The form of an entry is:

tidy:

  class::

      /directory
                       pattern/include=wildcard

                       recurse=number/inf
                       age=days
                       size=number/empty
                       type=ctime/mtime/atime
                       dirlinks=keep/tidy/delete
                       rmdirs=true/false/all/sub
                       links=stop/keep/traverse/tidy

                       define=classlist
                       elsedefine=classlist

                       syslog=true/on/false/off
                       inform=true/on/false/off

                       filter=filter alias
                       ignore=pattern
                       exclude=pattern

Note that, each of the options below can be written in either upper or lower case and abbreviated by any unique abbreviation.

/directory

This is the directory name to directories which mark the start of a search for files matching certain wildcards. The wildcard home may be used instead of an explicit directory, in which case cfengine iterates over all home directories. It is compulsory to specify a directory.

pattern=wildcard or include=wildcard

A wildcard or filename to match the files you wish to be deleted. The pattern may contain the special symbols ? which matches a single character and * which matches any number of characters as in the shell. These two options are synonymous, as of version 2.0.x.

exclude=wildcard

This does not work for the home directive; use the global ignore list for this.

ignore=wildcard

This does not work for the home directive; use the global ignore list for this.

recurse=number/inf

This specifier tells cfengine whether or not to recurse into subdirectories. If the value is zero, only the named file or directory is affected. If the value is 1, it will open at most one level of subdirectory and affect the files within this scope. If the value is inf then cfengine opens all subdirectories and files beginning from the specified filename. See Recursion.

age=days

The age of a file in days represents a minimum access time elapsed before the file will be deleted. In other word a file will be deleted if it has not been accessed for days days.

links=stop/traverse/tidy

Normally cfengine does not descend into subdirectories which are pointed to by symbolic links. If you wish to force it to do so (without using the -l command line option) you may give this option the value true, or traverse, or follow. To specify no recursion you set the value false or stop. Note that the value set here in the cfengine program always overrides the value set by the -l command line option, so you can protect certain actions from this command line option by specifying a negative value here. If you specify no value here, the behaviour is determined by what you specify on the command line.

The value links=tidy has the same effect as the -L command line option except that here it may be specified per item rather than globally. Setting this value causes links which point to non-existent files to be deleted. This feature will not work on commands with the home wildcard feature. If you want to clean up old links you should either user a files command or the command line option which sets the tidy feature globally.

size=>number/empty

Old syntax size=number/empty. The value of this parameter decides the size of files to be deleted. Files larger than this value will be deleted if they also are older than the time specified in age. The default size is zero so that any file which gets matched by another critereon is deleted. However, if you want to single out only totally empty files, the empty may be used. With this option only empty files, nevery files with anything in them, will be deleted, if older than age. By default, the filesizes are in kilobytes, but kilobytes and megabytes may also be specified by appending b,k,m to the numbers. Only the first character after the number is significant so you may write the numbers however it might be convenient, e.g. 14k, 14kB, 14kilobytes, the same as for disable.

type=ctime/mtime/atime

This value is used to set the type of time comparison made using age. The default is to compare access times (atime) or the last time the file was read. A comparison by modification time (mtime) uses the last time the contents of the file was changed. The ctime parameter is the last time the contents, owner or permissions of the file were changed.

dirlinks=keep/tidy/delete

This value is used to decide whether cfengine will delete links which point to directories. The default value is to keep the links. Note that, if the travlinks option is switched on, cfengine will not tidy or delete links which point to directories, instead it follows them into the subdirectory. This is a supplement to the rmdirs option. You need both to make links to directories disappear. Note that, even if travlinks is set to true, cfagent will not follow symbolic links that are not owned by the agent user ID; this is to prevent link race attacks, in which users with write access could divert the agent to another part of the filesystem,

rmdirs=true/false/all/sub

Normally cfengine will not delete directories. If this option is set to `true' then cfengine will delete any directories which are empty. Non-empty directories will not be touched and no message will be given unless in verbose mode. Note that this option overrides the above option dirlinks, so that even links which point to empty directories will be removed. If this is set to `sub' then the topmost directory will not be removed, only sub-directories.

define=classlist

The colon, comma or dot separated list of classes becomes defined if any file matching the specified pattern is deleted.

tidy:

   AllHomeServers::

       home     pattern=core   R=inf age=0
       home     pattern=*~     R=inf age=7
       home     pattern=#*     R=inf age=30


   any::

       /tmp/    pat=*            R=inf   age=1
       /        pat=core         R=2     age=0
       /etc     pat=hosts.equiv  r=0     age=0

In the first example, all hosts in the group AllHomeServers iterate a search over all user home directories looking for `core' files (older than zero days) and emacs backup files *~, #* older than seven days.

The default values for these options are the empty string for the wildcard pattern, zero for the recursion and a specification of the age is compulsory.

When cfengine tidies users' home directories, it keeps a log of all the files it deletes each time it is run. This means that, in case of accidents, the user can see that the file has been deleted and restore it from backup. The log file is called .cfengine.rm and it is placed in the home directory of each user. The file is owned by root, but is readable to the user concerned.

unmount

The unmount function unmounts non-required filesystems and removes the appropriate entry from the filesystem table (/etc/fstab or equivalent). The syntax is simply

unmount:

   class::

      mounthost:filesystem

        deletedir=true/false
        deletefstab=true/false
        force=true/false

The options allow you to temporarily unmount a directory without actually removing it from the filesystem table. The option force is not currently implemented and will likely have to be system dependent. For example:

unmount:

   physics::

      libraryserver:/$(site)/libraryserver/data

If the device is busy then the actual unmount will not take place until it becomes free, or the machine is rebooted. This feature should work on AIX systems, in spite of these machines inherent peculiarities in the form of the filesystem table.

Some users do not mount filesystems on a directory of the same name as the source directory. This can lead to confusion. Note, if you have problems removing a mounted filesystem, try using the mountpoint of the filesystem, rather than the name of the filesystem itself, in the unmount command.

Cfservd and cfrun reference

• cfservd control:
• admit grant and deny:
• cfrun:
• Firewalls and NATs:

The server daemon is controlled by a file called cfservd.conf. The syntax of this configuration file is deliberately modelled on cfengine's own configuration file, but despite the similarities, they are separate.

You can use groups and import in both files to break up files into convenient modules and to import common resources, such as lists of groups.

Note that the classes in the cfservd.conf file do not tell you the classes of host which have access to files and directories, but rather which classes of host pay attention to the access and deny commands when the file is parsed.

Authentication is not by class or group but by hostname, like the /etc/exports file on most Unix systems. The syntax for the file is as follows:

 control:

   classes::

       domain = ( DNS-domain-name )

       cfrunCommand = ( "script/filename" )  # Quoted

       MaxConnections = ( maximum number of forked daemons )

       ChecksumDatabase = ( filename )

       IfElapsed = ( time-in-minutes )

       DenyBadClocks = ( false )

       AllowConnectionsFrom = ( IP numbers )

       DenyConnectionsFrom = ( IP numbers )

       AllMultipleConnectionsFrom = ( IP numbers )

       TrustKeysFrom  = ( IP numbers )

       AllowUsers = ( mark systemuser )

       LogAllConnections = ( false/true )

       SkipVerify = ( IP numbers )

       DynamicAddresses = ( IP numbers )

 groups:

   Group definitions

 import:

   Files to import

 admit: | grant:

   classes::

      /file-or-directory

        wildcards/hostnames

 deny:

   classes::

      /file-or-directory

        wildcards/hostnames root=hostlist encrypt=true/on

The file consists of a control section and access information.

control

• IP address ranges:
• AllowConnectionsFrom:
• AllowMultipleConnectionsFrom:
• AllowUsers:
• AutoExecCommand:
• AutoExecInterval:
• ChecksumDatabase in cfservd:
• cfrunCommand:
• DenyBadClocks:
• DenyConnectionsFrom:
• cfservd IfElapsed:
• LogAllConnections:
• MaxConnections:
• TrustKeysFrom:
• DynamicAddresses:

IP address ranges

In the access control lists below, host ranges can be specified in a number of ways i) as substrings, ii) as address ranges denoted by the "-" hyphen, or iii) as CIDR (Classless Inter Domain Routing) notation. For example

128.39.73
128.39.74.10/23
128.39.74-75.10-22
2001:700:700:3:290:27ff:fea2:4730-4790
2001:700:700:3:290:27ff:fea2:4730/64

128.39.74.
128.39.74.10/24
128.39.74.1-254

AllowConnectionsFrom

This variable allows a list of numerical IP masks to be specified, which cfservd will allow connections from. If the list is not empty and a host whose IP address is not specified attempts to connect to the daemon, its connection will be closed immediately. This can be used to prevent hanging connection attacks from malicous hosts and other denial of service attacks which would bind thread resources.

     control:

      AllowConnectionsFrom = ( 128.39.89  192.2.0.10 )

AllowMultipleConnectionsFrom

This variable should contain a list of IP wildcards to hosts which are allowed simultaneous sessions on the server. Hosts which are not in this list are allowed to connect only once, i.e. they must terminate and reconnect in order to establish a new session. This is to prevent a possible attacker from opening multiple sockets and never closing them, resulting in a denial of service attack. Hosts IP's can be placed here if they could have overlapping copy sessions (e.g. long backup transfers which can run over time). This prevents the error message "Multiple connections denied/spam shield".

AllowUsers

This list determines which users are to be allowed to connect to the daemon. Note that there is no way of identifying users except by their public keys. If a malicious asserts their identity, when no public key for the named user is known to the server, then they could spoof the identity of that user. All users who should be allowed to connect need to be here. This applies to use of cfrun.

AllowUsers = ( mark root )

In other words, this is a "security by obscurity" first defence against picking up bad keys, when the server is in trust mode, with respect to a host. The attacker must know a valid user name in order to even try their luck entering into a key dialogue.

This reduces the probability that spoofing can be successful. The only real defence against spoofing is to make sure that all required public keys are installed in advance, and to switch off trust.

AutoExecCommand

This variable no longer exists in cfengine version 2.

AutoExecInterval

This variable no longer exists in version 2 of cfengine.

ChecksumDatabase

This is the path and filename to a database which will cache MD5 checksum values server-side. This optimization is only available if you have the Berkeley database library libdb on your system. If this variable is not defined, no database caching will be used and checksum values will be computed directly on request. The utility of this solution is a trade-off between the time it takes to compute the checksum versus the time for a disk-based lookup.

cfrunCommand

This string is the command which you would like to be executed remotely by the cfrun command.

DenyBadClocks

If this is set to off, cfservd will not deny access to clients whose clocks are off by more than one hour. The default is to deny access to systems whose clocks differ by more than one hour. This can prevent messages of the form `Can't stat' file when remote copying.

DenyConnectionsFrom

Hosts which are included by the allow-list above can be explicitly denied access using this list.

     control:

      DenyConnectionsFrom = ( 128.39.89.76 )  # rogue host

IfElapsed

The IfElapsed anti-spamming filter is also built into cfservd so that a remote user cannot even get as far as causing cfengine to parse its input files (which could be used for spamming in itself). The time is in minutes, the default is one hour.

LogAllConnections

If set to true, every successful connection will be logged to syslog. This could be useful for identifying abuses of the service, if the server should come under attack, e.g. a denial of service attack. The IP address can then be excluded from the allowed connections list.

MaxConnections

This integer value sets a limit on the maximum number of child daemon threads which cfservd will `fork' in order to handle remote requests. The default value is ten.

TrustKeysFrom

Hosts which are included in this list are automatically trusted, if cfservd does not know their public key. This allows public keys to be exchanged. Cfservd will not automatically accept a public key from a host it does not know, since the key will be used to assert strong authentication later. Once a pubic key has been associated with an IP address, it will never be updated, unless the existing key is deleted by hand.

     control:

      TrustKeysFrom = ( 128.39.89.76 )     # trusted host
      TrustKeysFrom = ( 128.39.89.76/24 )  # trusted subnet

DynamicAddresses

Hosts which are included in this list are assumed to have IP addresses which can change with time, e.g. hosts which are given IP addresses by DHCP or a BOOTP like protocol.

     control:

      DynamicAddresses = ( 128.39.74.100-200 )  # DHCP range

If cfservd receives a connection from an IP address that is in this list, and trustkey is true, the existing key for that IP address can be replaced with a new key, and the old key is recorded in a "used keys" list, access is granted. If trust is switched off, the server looks in the "used key list" to see if the key has been seen before. If not access is refused. If it has been seen before - it uses this earlier trust to accept the connection and replace the IP-key binding.

Note that used keys are kept in a database for easy lookup, whereas fixed keys are kept in files for easy administration. If host keys change or are reinstalled on the dynamically allocated hosts, then this database should probably be deleted to purge keys that become illegal.

admit, grant and deny

• root=:
• encrypt=:
• SkipVerify:

root=

This list specificies the names of hosts which are to have read access to files, regardless of the owner of the file. This effectively gives root users on connecting hosts privileges to non-root owned files on the server, but not vice-versa, similar to the NFS root mapping, except that there is no question of a client being able to modify files on the server. Caution: cfservd trusts the DNS service, so be aware that cache poisoning attacks are a possible way of bypassing access controls.

encrypt=true

If this option is set, cfservd will only serve the named files if the copy access type is secure, i.e. on an encrypted link. This presupposes that cfengine has been compiled with a working OpenSSL library.

SkipVerify

If connecting hosts use a Network Address Translator in order to share an IP address, reverse lookup will fail to give a correct verification of host identity. You can switch off cfservd's verification of IP host identity for specific IP addresses or patterns using this command. E.g.

SkipVerify = ( 192.0.0.10  192.0.2.  )

This does not affect key verification.

NOTE!! This is a security risk because it means that cfservd implicitly trusts the connecting hosts! You should be very careful in using Network Address Translators in a secure environment. It is not recommended for sites which require a high level of security.

cfrun

The general syntactic form of the cfrun command is

  cfrun -option --longoption class1 class2 ...

Since cfrun addresses remote hosts, there is an ambiguity in whether options are intended for the cfrun command itself, on the local host, or whether they are to be passed on to the agent on the remote hosts. To clarify this distinction, the arguments are organized as follows:

  cfrun -local options -- remote options -- remote classes

Local options are processed by cfrun on the local host; remote options are passed on as options to the remote cfagent (actually to the command defined in cfrunCommand in the file cfservd.conf; remote classes are processed by the remote cfservd service, and specifiy classes which must be satisfied by the remote host in order to invoke the remote command.

The -q and -I options are always assumed when executing cfengine remotely, so that SplayTime is effectively zero when polling hosts serially, and the output always shows what is happening on the remote hosts.

Each host evaluates the classes sent by cfrun and decides whether cfengine should be invoked. Only hosts which belong to the classes defined on the cfrun command line are executed. This allows you to single out groups of hosts which should execute cfengine, based on the very classes which you have defined for your configuration. If no classes are sent on the command line, then all hosts are run.

cfrun uses a configuration file which is located under the CFINPUTS directory in order to determine which hosts and in which order it should try to connect. Because cfengine always uses a reliable TCP protocol for connections, it verifies each connection rather than simply broadcasting openly. Using this file you can even simulate broadcasting to hosts outside your subnet.

This file should contain every host name you ever want to configure remotely, because you can still select subsets of the file by specifying classes which the remote host will understand. If the remote host is not in one of the classes you specify when you run cfrun, then it will simply ignore the request. Conversely, if you do not place a host in this file, it will never be contacted when you use the cfrun command. The format of the file is as follows

 #
 # Comment ..
 #
 domain=my.domain
 access=user1,user2
 outputdir=directory
 maxchild=number limit

 hostname1            options
 hostname2:port options
 ...

If the option outputdir is present, cfrun forks a separate process for each host and passes the output to files in a named directory. The maxchild line limits the number of forked processes.

It is important to add the domain-name to this file. The options you specifiy in this file, per host, are added to those you might specify on the command line when invoking cfengine remotely. For instance, you might know of a bug on one host and decide not to perform interface configuration on that one machine. You would write a line like this:

  funny.domain -- -i  # problem host

You could use cfrun inside one of your cfengine configuration files in order to remotely execute cfengine on all of the other network machines, by setting up a host list. The disadvantage however is that cfengine has to poll the systems on the network, which means that cfengine cannot be working in parallel on all hosts.

Some other examples:

e.g.  cfrun -- -- linux          Run on all linux machines
      cfrun -- -p                Ping and parse on all hosts
      cfrun -v -- -p             Ping all, local verbose
      cfrun -v -- -k -- solaris  Local verbose, all solaris, but no copy

Amongst the local options, one may specify a subset of the hosts which are to be contacted by cfrun, i.e. to avoid processing the entire list of hosts. For example, to contact only host1 and host2, given that they are already in the list of hosts.

cfrun -v host1 host2
cfrun -v host1 host2 -- -p

Firewalls and NATs

Firewalls and Network Address Translators (NAT) can be a problem for addressing. Suppose you have a firewall and with a private IP-range behind the firewall. You want to update the nodes from a central host. You can do a two stage configuration: first update the firewall and then update from the firewall to the nodes.

But suppose you already use SNAT (Source Network Address Translation) and DNAT (Destination ...) for the nodes. With DNAT you can say that socket 22000 on the firewall is routed to host-name:5308. DNAT gives us the possibilty to update the nodes from a central server in one step instead of two.

If the port command is given cfrun uses this to connect to the client instead of the default (5308) one. Here is an example (cfrun.hosts):

node1.example.org
node2.example.org:22000 -DNis
node2.example.org:22001

This connects to: 1) node1 with standard port, 2) node2 with port 22000 and extra options -DNis and, 3) node2 with port 22000.

Cfexecd reference

In wrapper mode (non-forking, non-daemon mode), cfagent is run by adding a line to the root crontab file of each system:

0,30 * * * * /usr/local/sbin/cfexecd -F

control:

smtpserver = ( mailhub.example.org ) # site MTA which can talk smtp
sysadm     = ( mark@example.org )   # mail address of sysadm

Fill in suitable values for these variables. An alternative, or additional way to run cfengine, is to run the cfexecd program is daemon mode (without the -F) option. In this mode, the daemon lives in the background and sleeps, activating only in accordance with a scheduling policy. The default policy is to run once every hour (equivalent to Min00_05). Here is how you would modify cfagent.conf in order to make the daemon execute cfagent every half-hour:

  control:

   # When should cfexecd in daemon mode wake up the agent?

   schedule   = ( Min00_05 Min30_35 )

Note, that if problems with library path for compiled in libraries occur, an explicit library path can be specified with the -L option.

0,30 * * * * /usr/local/sbin/cfexecd -F -L /local/iu/lib:/local/lib/mysql:/local/lib:/local/gnu/lib

Problem solving

• cf.preconf bootstrap file:
• cfrc resource file:

cf.preconf bootstrap file

In some cases you will want to run cfengine on a system to configure it from scratch. If the system is in a very bad way, it might not even be able to parse the cfengine configuration file, perhaps because the network was not properly configured or the DNS (Domain Name Service) was out of action. To help prevent this situation, cfengine looks for a script called cf.preconf which gets executed prior to parsing and can be used to perform any emergency tests. This file needs only contain enough to get the system to parse the configuration files.

cf.preconf may be any script in any language. It need not exist at all! It is fed one argument by cfengine, namely the system hard-class for the current system (e.g. ultrix). Here is an example:

#!/bin/sh
#
# cf.preconf is an emergency/bootstrap file to get things going
# in case cfengine is unable to parse its config file
#

backupdir=/iu/nexus/local/iu/etc

 #
 # If these files don't exist, you might not be able to parse cfagent.conf
 #

if [ ! -s /etc/resolv.conf ]; then

 echo Patching basics resolv.conf file
 cat > /etc/resolv.conf << XX
domain iu.hioslo.no
nameserver 128.39.89.10
XX

fi

#
# SVR4
#

if [ "$1" = "solaris" ]; then

  if [ ! -s "/etc/passwd" ]; then

  echo Patching missing passwd file
    /bin/cp $backupdir/passwd /etc/passwd
  fi

  if [ ! -s "/etc/shadow" ]; then

   echo Patching missing passwd file
   /bin/cp $backupdir/shadow /etc/shadow
  fi
fi

#
# BSD 4.3
#

if [ "$1" = "linux" ]; then

   if [ ! -s "/etc/passwd"  ]
   then

    echo Patching missing passwd file
    /bin/cp $backupdir/passwd.linux /etc/passwd
   fi
fi

cfrc resource file

If, for some reason you are not satisfied with the defaults which cfengine uses, then you can change them by making an entry in the resource file. The default values are defined in the source code file classes.c in the distribution. The format of the resource file is:

hardclass.variable: value

For example, you might want to forget about where your HPUX system mounts its mail directory and mount it under /usr/spool/mail. In this case you would add the line:

hpux.maildir: /usr/spool/mail

To redefine the filesystem table for GNU/linux, you would write:

linux.fstab: /etc/linuxfstab

The full list of re-definable resources is:

   mountcomm       # command used to mount filesystems
   unmountcomm     # command used to unmount filesystems
   ethernet        # name of the ethernet device
   mountopts       # options to above mount command
   fstab           # the name of the filesystemtable
   maildir         # the location of the mail directory
   netstat         # the full path to netstat and options
   pscomm          # the path to the system's ps command
   psopts          # the options used by ps (default aux/ef)

You should never need to redefine resources unless you decide to do something non-standard. Interested readers are referred to the values in classes.c.

Cfengine is easily extensible so as to support a variety of architectures. You can even add your own. To do so you need, first of all, to define a new class for the operating system concerned. The file classes.c has been separated off from the remainder of the source code so that you can easily see which data structures need to be extended.

To make life as straightforward as possible, three unused classes have been defined. They are called (unremarkably) unused1, unused2 and unused3. If you add any further classes, it will be necessary to increase the constant clssattr defined in cf.defs.h by one for every new addition. You do not need to change clssattr if you simple replace one of the unused classes by a real class.

To see fully the impact of what you need to do, you should make a search for the strings unused? in all of the source files. Certain special cases need to be handled for each operating system. For example, the form of the filesystem table is quite radically different on some systems such as AIX. One thing you must do is to fill in the default values for the new operating system in the file classes.c.

If you fill in the details for a new operating system before it finds its way into a new release, you might consider sending the details to the bug list in the next paragraph.

Example configuration files

Here is a sample from a large configuration file, just to give you some ideas. The file is broken up into manageable pieces for convenience.

• cfagent.conf:
• cf.groups:
• cf.main:
• cf.site:
• cf.motd:
• cf.users:
• cf.solaris:
• cf.linux:
• cf.freebsd:
• cfservd.conf:

cfagent.conf

#####################################################################
#
#  CFENGINE CONFIGURATION FOR site = iu.hioslo.no
#
#  This file is for root only.
#
######################################################################

###
#
# BEGIN cfagent.conf
#
###

import:

   #
   # Split things up to keep things tidy
   #

   any::
                    cf.groups
                    cf.main
                    cf.site
                    cf.motd

   hpux::           cf.hpux
   linux::          cf.linux
   solaris::        cf.solaris
   sun4::           cf.sun4
   ultrix::         cf.ultrix
   freebsd::        cf.freebsd

   #
   # Do you want to do this ?
   #

   AllHomeServers:: cf.users


###
#
# END cfengine.conf
#
###

cf.groups

##############################################################
#
# cf.groups - for iu.hioslo.no
#
# This file contains  all group/class definitions
#
#################################################################

###
#
# BEGIN cf.groups
#
###

groups:

   #
   # Define some groups
   #

   iu = ( nexus ferengi regula borg dax lore axis worf daystrom voyager
          aud1 aud2 aud3 aud4 bajor ds9 takpah takpeh nostromo galron
          thistledown rama chaos pc-steinarj pc-hildeh way jart kosh )

   diskless   = ( regula ferengi lore )

   standalone = ( nexus axis dax borg worf daystrom voyager
                  aud1 aud2 aud3 aud4 bajor ds9 takpah takpeh
                  nostromo galron thistledown rama pc-torejo
                  pc-steinarj pc-hildeh )

   AllHomeServers   = ( nexus )
   AllBinaryServers = ( nexus borg )

   XBootServer  = ( nexus )
   WWWServers   = ( nexus )
   FTPserver    = ( nexus )
   NameServers  = ( nexus )
   PasswdServer = ( nexus )
   BackupHost   = ( nexus )

   MailHub      = ( nexus )
   MailClients  = ( iu -nexus )

###
#
# END cf.groups
#
###

cf.main

##############################################################
#
# cf.main - for iu.hioslo.no
#
# This file contains generic config stuff
#
#################################################################

###
#
# BEGIN cf.main
#
###

control:

   access    = ( root )        # Only root should run this

   site      = ( iu )
   domain    = ( iu.hioslo.no )
   sysadm    = ( drift@iu.hioslo.no )

   repository = ( /var/spool/cfengine )

   netmask   = ( 255.255.255.0 )
   timezone  = ( MET )
   nfstype   = ( nfs )

   sensiblesize  = ( 1000 )
   sensiblecount = ( 2 )
   editfilesize  = ( 20000 )

   mountpattern = ( /$(site)/$(host) )
   homepattern  = ( u? )

   #
   # If we undefine this with cfengine -N longjob
   # then we switch off all jobs labelled with this class
   #

   addclasses = ( longjob )

   #
   # Macros & constants are inherited downwards in imports
   # but are not passed up to parent files. Good idea to
   # define them all here
   #

   masterfiles = ( /iu/nexus/local/iu )
   main_server = ( nexus )
   cfbin       = ( /iu/nexus/local/gnu/lib/cfengine/bin )
   gnu         = ( /local/gnu )
   ftp         = ( /local/iu/ftp )
   nisslave    = ( dax )
   nisfiles    = ( /iu/nexus/local/iu/etc )

   #
   # The action sequence for daily (full) runs and
   # for hourly updates (called with -DHourly)
   #

   Hr00::

      actionsequence =
         (
         copy
         mountall
         mountinfo
         checktimezone
         netconfig
         resolve
         unmount
         shellcommands
         addmounts
         links.Prepare
         files.Prepare
         directories
         links.Rest
         mailcheck
         mountall
         required
         tidy
         disable
         editfiles
         files.Rest
         processes
         )

   !Hr00::

      actionsequence =
         (
         resolve
         shellcommands
         copy
         editfiles
         processes
	 links
         )

   force::

      actionsequence =
         (
         files.Prepare.Rest
         tidy
         )

######################################################################

homeservers:

   iu:: nexus

binservers:

   iu.solaris::                 nexus
   iu.linux::                   borg

mailserver:

   any:: nexus:/var/mail

mountables:

   any::
         nexus:/iu/nexus/u1
         nexus:/iu/nexus/u2
         nexus:/iu/nexus/u3
         nexus:/iu/nexus/u4
         nexus:/iu/nexus/u5
         nexus:/iu/nexus/u6
         nexus:/iu/nexus/ua
         nexus:/iu/nexus/ud
         nexus:/iu/nexus/local
         nexus:/opt/NeWSprint
         nexus:/opt/AcroRead
         borg:/iu/borg/local
         dax:/iu/dax/local

miscmounts:

   linux||freebsd::   nexus:/iu/nexus/local /iu/nexus/local ro

######################################################################

broadcast:

  ones

defaultroute:

   cadeler30-gw

######################################################################

resolve:

      128.39.89.10  # nexus
      158.36.85.10  # samson.hioslo.no
      129.241.1.99

######################################################################

tidy:

   #
   # Some global tidy-ups
   #

      /tmp/                    pat=*             r=inf     A=1
      /var/tmp                 pat=*             r=inf     A=1
      /                        pat=core          r=1       A=0
      /etc                     pat=core          r=1       A=0

######################################################################

ignore:                       # Don't check or tidy these directories

      /local/lib/gnu/emacs/lock/
      /local/tmp
      ftp
      projects
      /local/bin/top
      /local/lib/tex/fonts
      /local/iu/etc
      /local/etc
      /local/iu/httpd/conf
      /usr/tmp/locktelelogic
      /usr/tmp/lockIDE
      RootMailLog

      #
      # Emacs lock files etc
      #

      !*
      /local/lib/xemacs

      #
      # X11 keeps X server data in /tmp/.X11
      # better not delete this!
      #

      .X11

      #
      # Some users like to give a file or two 777 protection here
      # so netsurfers can update a log or counter when running as
      # `nobody'
      #

      www

#####################################################################

disable:

   /etc/hosts.equiv
   /etc/nologin
   /usr/lib/sendmail.fc


###
#
# END cf.main
#
###

cf.site

##############################################################
#
# cf.site - for iu.hioslo.no
#
# This file contains site specific data
#
#################################################################

###
#
# BEGIN cf.site
#
###

links:

   Prepare::

      /local     -> /$(site)/$(binserver)/local
      /usr/local -> /local

   dax::

      /iu/dax/local             +> /iu/nexus/local
      /projects                 -> /iu/dax/local/projects
      /iu/nexus/u1/sowille/data -> /iu/dax/scratch/data

   XBootServer::

      #
      # Set up a /local/tftpboot area where all X terminal
      # stuff will be kept.
      #

      /tftpboot                  -> /local/tftpboot
      /local/tftpboot/td/configs -> /local/tftpboot/td/examples/configs
      /etc/bootptab              -> /tftpboot/bootptab
      /tftpboot/usr/lib/X11/td   -> /tftpboot/td

   NameServers::

      /etc/named.boot -> /local/iu/named/named.boot

   MailHub::

      /etc/mail/sendmail.cf ->! /iu/nexus/local/mail/sendmail.cf

   MailClients.solaris::

      /etc/mail/sendmail.cf ->! /iu/nexus/local/mail/client.cf

   nexus::

	/local/bin +> /local/latex/bin

#############################################################

disable:

  #
  # We run Berkeley sendmail and the config files are
  # all under /iu/nexus/local/lib/mail
  #

    /etc/aliases

 WWWServers.Sunday::

   #
   # Disabling these log files weekly prevents them from
   # growing so enormous that they fill the disk!
   #

   /local/iu/httpd/logs/access_log   rotate=empty
   /local/iu/httpd/logs/agent_log    rotate=empty
   /local/iu/httpd/logs/error_log    rotate=empty
   /local/iu/httpd/logs/referer_log  rotate=empty

   #
   # CERT warning, security fix
   #

  any::

    /usr/lib/expreserve

  FTPserver.Sunday.Hr00::

   /local/iu/xferlog rotate=3

#################################################################

files:

  Prepare::

      /etc/motd              m=0644 r=0 o=root act=touch
      /.cshrc                m=0644 r=0 o=root act=touch

   PasswdServer::

      /local/iu/etc/passwd m=0644 o=root g=other action=fixplain
      /local/iu/etc/shadow m=0644 o=root g=other action=fixplain

   WWWServers.Rest::

      /local/iu/www                           m=775        g=www act=fixall r=inf
      /local/iu/httpd/conf                    m=664 o=root g=www act=fixall r=inf
      /local/iu/www/cgi-bin-public/count_file m=777 o=root g=www act=fixplain

   FTPserver::

      #
      # Make sure anonymous ftp areas have the correct
      # protection, or logins won't be able to read
      # files - or perhaps a security risk. This is
      # solaris 2 specific...
      #

      $(ftp)/pub        mode=755 o=ftp  g=ftp  r=inf act=fixall
      $(ftp)/Obin       mode=111 o=root g=other      act=fixall
      $(ftp)/etc        mode=111 o=root g=other      act=fixdirs
      $(ftp)/usr/bin/ls mode=111 o=root g=other      act=fixall
      $(ftp)/dev        mode=555 o=root g=other      act=fixall
      $(ftp)/usr        mode=555 o=root g=other      act=fixdirs

   Prepare::

      /etc/shells mode=0644 action=touch

   AllBinaryServers.Rest.longjob::

     /local mode=-0002 r=inf owner=root,bin group=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,staff
            links=tidy action=fixall

     /local/iu/RootMailLog  m=0666 action=touch

   dax.Rest::

    /iu/dax/scratch        r=0 o=root mode=1777 action=fixall
    /iu/dax/local/projects r=0 o=root mode=755  action=fixdirs

   nexus::

    /local/mail/sendmail.cf o=root m=444 act=fixplain

    /iu/nexus/ua/robot/.rhosts o=robot m=600 act=touch

    /local/iu/named/pz         o=root  m=644 act=fixall r=1

    /local/latex/lib/tex/texmf/fonts  owner=root
                                      mode=1666
                                      recurse=inf
                                      action=fixall

#################################################################

tidy:

      #
      # Make sure the file repository doesn't fill up
      #

      /var/spool/cfengine pattern=*    age=3

      /var                pattern=core age=0  r=inf
      /var/spool/mqueue   pattern=*    age=14 type=mtime

   BackupHost::

      # Here we tidy old backup tar files from the backup area
      # A special tmp area gets cleared every 4 days. The files
      # are created by Audun's backup help script (see shellcommands)

      /iu/nexus/backup1      pat=*  age=7

#################################################################

shellcommands:

   PasswdServer::

      # Build and install the BSD compatible passwd file
      # from the master passwd/shadow file on solaris

      "/local/iu/bin/BuildPasswdFiles"
      "/local/iu/bin/BuildGroupFiles"

  BackupHost.Sunday.Hr00|BackupHost.Wednesday.Hr00::

      #
      # Make a system backup of /iu/nexus/u? with Audun's script
      #

      "$(cfbin)/cfbackup -p -f /iu/nexus/backup1 -s /iu/nexus/ud"
      "$(cfbin)/cfbackup -p -f /iu/nexus/backup1 -s /iu/nexus/ua"
      "$(cfbin)/cfbackup -p -f /iu/nexus/backup1 -s /iu/nexus/u1"
      "$(cfbin)/cfbackup -p -f /iu/nexus/backup1 -s /iu/nexus/u2"
      "$(cfbin)/cfbackup -p -f /iu/nexus/backup2 -s /iu/nexus/u3"
      "$(cfbin)/cfbackup -p -f /iu/nexus/backup2 -s /iu/nexus/u4"
      "$(cfbin)/cfbackup -p -f /iu/nexus/backup2 -s /iu/nexus/u5"
      "$(cfbin)/cfbackup -p -f /iu/nexus/backup2 -s /iu/nexus/u6"

  nexus.Sunday.longjob.Hr00::

      #
      # See how much rubbish users have accumulated each Sunday
      #

      "$(cfbin)/noseyparker /iu/nexus/u1 $(sysadm) "
      "$(cfbin)/noseyparker /iu/nexus/u2 $(sysadm) "
      "$(cfbin)/noseyparker /iu/nexus/u3 $(sysadm) "
      "$(cfbin)/noseyparker /iu/nexus/u4 $(sysadm) "
      "$(cfbin)/noseyparker /iu/nexus/u5 $(sysadm) "
      "$(cfbin)/noseyparker /iu/nexus/u6 $(sysadm) "
      "$(cfbin)/noseyparker /iu/nexus/ua $(sysadm) nomail"
      "$(cfbin)/noseyparker /iu/nexus/ud $(sysadm) nomail"

   nexus.longjob.Hr00::

      #
      # Update the GNU find/locate database each night
      #

      "$(gnu)/lib/locate/updatedb"
      "/local/iu/bin/newhomepage.sh"

###############################################################

editfiles:

    #
    # cfengine installs itself as a cron job - sneaky! :)
    #

    { /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root

    AppendIfNoSuchLine "0 * * * * $(cfbin)/cfwrap $(cfbin)/cfhourly"
    }

   FTPserver::

      { /etc/shells

      AppendIfNoSuchLine "/bin/tcsh"
      AppendIfNoSuchLine "/local/gnu/bin/bash"
      }


   XBootServer::

      { /etc/inetd.conf

      AppendIfNoSuchLine
          "bootp dgram udp wait root /local/bin/bootpd bootpd -i -d"
      }

   nexus::

      { /iu/nexus/ua/robot/.rhosts

      AppendIfNoSuchLine "borg"
      AppendIfNoSuchLine "borg.iu.hioslo.no"
      AppendIfNoSuchLine "aud4"
      AppendIfNoSuchLine "aud4.iu.hioslo.no"
      }

   dax::

      { /etc/system

      AppendIfNoSuchLine "set pt_cnt=128"
      }


######################################################################

required:

   #
   # Any host must have a /local, /usr/local fs. Check that
   # it exists and looks sensible. (i.e. not empty)
   #

   /$(site)/$(binserver)/local


######################################################################

copy:

   #
   # NIS seems broken at IU, so here we use NFS to fudge
   # a file distribution as a temporary solution. Actually
   # this makes the system work faster without NIS!
   #

      $(nisfiles)/services dest=/etc/services o=root g=other mode=0644
      $(nisfiles)/hosts.deny dest=/etc/hosts.deny o=root mode=0644

   !debian::

      $(nisfiles)/hosts    dest=/etc/hosts o=root g=other mode=0644

   PasswdServer::

      /etc/passwd dest=$(nisfiles)/passwd o=root g=other mode=0644
      /etc/shadow dest=$(nisfiles)/shadow o=root g=other mode=0644

   nexus::

      /local/iu/etc/dfstab dest=/etc/dfs/dfstab  o=root  mode=0744

   solaris.!PasswdServer::

      $(nisfiles)/passwd dest=/etc/passwd o=root g=other mode=0644
      $(nisfiles)/shadow dest=/etc/shadow o=root g=other mode=0600
      $(nisfiles)/group.solaris dest=/etc/group o=root g=other mode=0644

   linux::

      $(nisfiles)/passwd.linux dest=/etc/passwd o=root g=other mode=0644
      $(nisfiles)/group.linux dest=/etc/group o=root g=other mode=0644

###############################################################

processes:

      "eggdrop"                           signal=kill
      "irc"                               signal=kill
      "ping"                              signal=kill
      "NetXRay"                           signal=kill
      "netxray"                           signal=kill
      "ypserv"                            signal=kill
      "ypbind"                            signal=kill
      "rarpd"                             signal=kill
      "rpc.boot"                          signal=kill
      "README"                            signal=kill # You don't sh README !

   !XBootServer::

      "bootp"                             signal=kill

   #
   # These processes are not killed every hour, but once a day
   # when cfengine runs at night. Note that there are often
   # hanging pine and elm processes. These programs crash and
   # go berserk, using hundreds of hours of CPU time.
   #

   Hr00::

      "cron"                 signal=hup  # HUP these to update their config
      "inetd"                signal=hup

      "/local/sdt/sdt/bin"   signal=term # For those elektro dudes who forget
                                         # to log out
      "netscape"             signal=kill
      "pine"                 signal=kill
      "elm"                  signal=kill


###
#
# END cf.site
#
###

cf.motd

##################################################################
#
# cf.motd
#
# This file is used to set the message of the day file on
# each host
#
##################################################################

 #####
 #
 # BEGIN cf.motd
 #
 #####


control:

   #
   # This points to the file containing general text
   #

   masterfile      = ( /iu/nexus/local/iu/etc/motd-master )
   local_message   = ( /etc/motd.local )

editfiles:

      { /etc/motd

      BeginGroupIfFileIsNewer "$(masterfile)"
        EmptyEntireFilePlease
        InsertFile "$(masterfile)"
        InsertFile "$(local_message)"
        PrependIfNoSuchLine "This system is running $(class):$(arch)"
      EndGroup
      }

 #####
 #
 # BEGIN cf.motd
 #
 #####

cf.users

Whether or not you perform any special services for users, with or without their consent is entirely a matter of local policy. In a school or college situation, users are often uncooperative and some are even irresponsible. This file shows you what you could do in an environment with inexperienced users, but please don't feel as though you have to be this totalitarian.

#################################################################
#
# cf.users - for iu.hioslo.no
#
# This file contains user specific actions
#
#################################################################

###
#
# BEGIN cf.users
#
###

ignore:

    robot

tidy:

   longjob::

     #
     # Some users just don't understand what they are doing
     # and this is safest, allbeit totalitarian
     #

     home                 pat=.rhosts                      age=0

     #
     # Tidy up users' home dirs
     #

     home                 pat=core             r=inf       age=0
     home                 pat=a.out            r=inf       age=1
     home                 p=*%                 r=inf       age=2
     home                 p=*~                 r=inf       age=2
     home                 p=#*                 r=inf       age=1
     home                 p=*.dvi              r=inf       age=14   type=ctime
     home                 p=*.log              r=inf       age=2
     home                 p=Log.*              r=inf       age=3
     home                 p=CKP                r=inf       age=1
     home                 p=BAK                r=inf       age=1
     home                 p=log                r=inf       age=0
     home                 p=*.o                r=inf       age=0
     home                 p=*.aux              r=inf       age=3
     home                 p=*.zip              r=inf       age=7
     home/.deleted        p=*                  r=inf       age=0
     home/.wastebacket    p=*                  r=inf       age=14
     home/www             p=*~                 r=inf       age=1

     #
     # Clear the big cache files netscape creates
     #

     home/.netscape-cache  p=cache????*         r=inf       age=0
     home/.MCOM-cache      p=cache????*         r=inf       age=0
     home/.netscape/cache  p=*                  r=inf       age=0


#################################################################

files:

   AllHomeServers.longjob.rest::

     #
     # Check users files are not writable to the world
     # and there are no stale links (pointing nowhere)
     #

     home mode=o-w recurse=inf action=fixall # links=tidy

     home/.xsession mode=755 action=fixall
     home/.cshrc    mode=755 action=fixall

#################################################################

copy:

   Hr00.longjob::

   #
   # Make sure each user has an up to date standard
   # setup.  Cshrc just sources in a big standard file
   # which is kept in ~user/../.setupfiles/cshrc
   # to reduce disk wastage
   #

   $(masterfiles)/lib/Cshrc   dest=home/.cshrc
   $(masterfiles)/lib/tkgrc   dest=home/.tkgrc
   $(masterfiles)/lib/fvwm2rc dest=home/.fvwm2rc


###
#
# END cf.users
#
###

cf.solaris

#################################################################
#
# cf.solaris - for iu.hioslo.no
#
# This file contains solaris specific patches
#
#################################################################

###
#
# BEGIN cf.solaris
#
###

directories:

     #
     # httpd/netscape want this to exist for some bizarre reason
     #

      /usr/lib/X11/nls

################################################################

tidy:

     /var/log  pattern=syslog.* age=0

   MailHub::

     /var/mail pattern=lp       age=0

#################################################################

files:

  #
  # If this doesn't exist fork will not work and the
  # system will not even be able to run the /etc/rc
  # scripts at boottime
  #

  /etc/system     o=root g=root m=644 action=touch

  /var/log/syslog o=root        m=666 action=touch

#############################################################

copy:

   #
   # Some standard setup files, can't link because
   # machine won't boot if their not on / partition.
   #

   /local/bin/tcsh dest=/bin/tcsh mode=755

   /local/iu/etc/nsswitch.standalone dest=/etc/nsswitch.conf

  #
  # Our named server uses a newer BIND
  # Put this here so that it will be preserved under
  # solaris reinstallation
  #

  NameServers::

   /local/iu/sbin/in.named         dest=/usr/sbin/in.named         mode=555
   /local/iu/sbin/in.named.reload  dest=/usr/sbin/in.named.reload  mode=555
   /local/iu/sbin/in.named.restart dest=/usr/sbin/in.named.restart mode=555
   /local/iu/sbin/in.ndc           dest=/usr/sbin/in.ndc           mode=555
   /local/iu/sbin/named-xfer       dest=/usr/sbin/named-xfer       mode=555
   /local/iu/lib/nslookup.help     dest=/usr/lib/nslookup.help     mode=444

  any::
   /local/iu/lib/libresolv.a        dest=/usr/lib/libresolv.a      mode=444
   /local/iu/lib/libresolv.so.2     dest=/usr/lib/libresolv.so.2   mode=444
   /local/bin/nslookup              dest=/usr/sbin/nslookup        mode=444

##############################################################

editfiles:

      { /etc/netmasks

      AppendIfNoSuchLine "128.39  255.255.255.0"
      }

      { /etc/defaultrouter

      AppendIfNoSuchLine "128.39.89.1"
      }

      { /usr/openwin/lib/app-defaults/XConsole

      AppendIfNoSuchLine "XConsole.autoRaise: on"
      }

   #
   # CERT security patch for vold vulnerability
   #

   { /etc/rmmount.conf

   HashCommentLinesContaining "action cdrom"
   HashCommentLinesContaining "action floppy"
   }

##############################################################

disable:

    /etc/.login  type=file
    /etc/aliases

   #
   # These files are ENORMOUS, don't let them fill the disk
   #

   Wednesday::

      /var/lp/logs/lpsched rotate=empty

      /var/adm/wtmpx       rotate=empty
      /var/adm/wtmp        rotate=empty

##############################################################

files:

    /etc/passwd        m=0644 o=root g=other action=fixplain
    /etc/shadow        m=0600 o=root g=other action=fixplain
    /etc/defaultrouter m=0644 o=root g=other action=touch
    /var/adm/wtmpx     m=0664 o=adm  g=adm   action=touch
    /var/adm/wtmp      m=0644 o=root g=adm   action=touch
    /var/adm/utmp      m=0644 o=root g=adm   action=fixplain
    /var/adm/utmpx     m=0664 o=adm  g=adm   action=fixplain

    /tmp m=1777                              action=fixdirs

##############################################################

disable:

   #
   # CERT security patch
   #

   /usr/openwin/bin/kcms_calibrate
   /usr/openwin/bin/kcms_configure
   /usr/bin/admintool

################################################################

shellcommands:

   AllBinaryServers.Saturday.longjob.Hr00::

      #
      # Make sure the man -k / apropos data are up to date
      #

      "/usr/bin/catman  -M /local/man"
      "/usr/bin/catman  -M /local/X11R5/man"
      "/usr/bin/catman  -M /usr/man"
      "/usr/bin/catman  -M /local/gnu/man"
      "/usr/bin/catman  -M /usr/openwin/share/man"
      "/usr/bin/catman  -M /local/X11R5/man"
      "/usr/bin/catman  -M /usr/share/man"

################################################################

editfiles:


      #
      # A painless way to add an rc.local script to the rc files
      # under solaris without having to fight though inittab
      #

      { /etc/rc3.d/S15nfs.server

      AppendIfNoSuchLine "sh /local/iu/etc/rc.local"
      }

      #
      # umask defined when inetd starts is inherited by all subprocesses
      # including ftpd which saves with mode 666 (!) unless we do this
      #

      { /etc/rc2.d/S72inetsvc

      PrependIfNoSuchLine "umask 022"
      }


###
#
# END cf.solaris
#
###

cf.linux

#################################################################
#
# cf.linux - for iu.hioslo.no
#
# This file contains debian linux specific patches
#
#################################################################

###
#
# BEGIN cf.linux
#
###

files:

      /etc/printcap m=644 o=root action=fixplain

     #
     # Cert advisories
     #

      /bin/mount         m=755 o=root action=fixall
      /bin/umount        m=755 o=root action=fixall

#######################################################################

  disable:

     #
     # Cert advisories
     #

      /sbin/dip-3.3.7n

########################################################################

links:

    /local/bin/tcsh   ->  /bin/tcsh

    /local/lib/mail   ->  /$(site)/$(main_server)/local/lib/mail

########################################################################

editfiles:

  #
  # Samba default mode needs to be set...
  #

   { /etc/smb.conf

   ReplaceAll "700" With "644"
   }

  #
  # Linux date is very stupid and needs a very careful
  # TZ definition, otherwise it loses
  #

   { /etc/csh.cshrc

   AppendIfNoSuchLine "setenv TZ 'MET-1MET DST-2,M3.5.0/2,M10.5.0/3'"
   }

  #
  # resolv+ ordering
  #

   { /etc/host.conf

   PrependIfNoSuchLine "order bind"
   }


  #
  # Should have been configured already (!)
  #

   { /etc/ld.so.conf

   AppendIfNoSuchLine "/usr/X11R6/lib"
   }

  #
  # Kill annoying messages
  #

   { /etc/cron.daily/standard

   HashCommentLinesContaining "security"
   }

#########################################################################

shellcommands:

  Hr00::

     #
     # Find/locate database
     #

     "/usr/bin/updatedb"

###
#
# END cf.linux
#
###

cf.freebsd / cf.netbsd

FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD are sufficiently similar to have a single file for all.

#################################################################
#
# cf.bsd - for iu.hioslo.no
#
# This file contains bsd specific patches
#
#################################################################

###
#
# BEGIN cf.bsd
#
###

links:

    /usr/spool        ->  /var/spool
    /local/bin/tcsh   ->  /bin/tcsh
    /local/bin/perl   ->  /usr/bin/perl
    /usr/lib/sendmail ->  /usr/sbin/sendmail

#################################################################

files:

   /usr/tmp mode=1777 owner=root action=fixall

#################################################################

editfiles:

   #
   # Comment out all lines to shut up this annoying cfengine-like
   # script, which sends mail every day!!!
   #

   { /etc/crontab

   HashCommentLinesContaining "daily"
   HashCommentLinesContaining "weekly"
   HashCommentLinesContaining "monthly"
   }

#################################################################

copy:

      $(masterfiles)/etc/printcap.client      dest=/etc/printcap mode=0644

#########################################################################

shellcommands:

  Hr00::

    "/usr/libexec/locate.updatedb"
    "/usr/bin/makewhatis /usr/share/man:/usr/X11R6/man"

###
#
# END cf.bsd
#
###

cfservd.conf

#########################################################
#
# This is a cfservd config file
#
#########################################################

 #
 # Could import cf.groups here and use a structure like
 # in cfengine.conf, cf.main, cf.groups
 #

control:

  public = ( /usr/local/publicfiles )

  almost_public = ( /usr/local/almostpublicfiles )

  cfrunCommand = ( /iu/nexus/ud/mark/comp/Tests/cfrun-command )

  MaxConnections = ( 10 )

#########################################################

admit:   # or grant:

     $(public) *

     $(almost_public) *.iu.hioslo.no *.gnu.ai.mit.edu

     /etc/passwd *.iu.hioslo.no

     #
     # Who can exec cfengine remotely?
     #

     $(cfrunCommand) *.iu.hioslo.no

#########################################################

deny:

     $(public)/special *.moneyworld.com

Variable Index

• !: Cfengine classes
• $(arch): Special variables
• $(binserver): Special variables
• $(class): Special variables
• $(cr): Special variables
• $(date): Special variables
• $(dblquote): Special variables
• $(dollar): Special variables
• $(domain): Special variables
• $(faculty): Special variables
• $(fqhost): Special variables
• $(host): Special variables
• $(ipaddress): Special variables
• $(lf): Special variables
• $(n): Special variables
• $(quote): Special variables
• $(site): Special variables
• $(spc): Special variables
• $(sysadm): Special variables
• $(tab): Special variables
• $(timezone): Special variables
• $(year): Special variables
• +: groups
• -D option: addclasses, Cfengine classes
• -l: tidy, Syntax
• -L: Single links
• -N option: addclasses, Cfengine classes
• -x option: cf.preconf bootstrap file
• .cfengine.rm: tidy
• /etc/host.conf: cf.preconf bootstrap file
• /var/cfengine/output: Cfexecd reference
• a=: tidy, Syntax
• AccessedBefore(): Evaluated classes
• action: Syntax
• actionsequence: actionsequence, control
• AddClasses: addclasses
• AddInstallable: addinstallable
• addmounts: actionsequence
• age: tidy
• AllowUsers: AllowUsers
• backup=: copy
• binserver: Link Children, Single links
• binservers: binservers
• broadcast: broadcast
• cf.preconf: cf.preconf bootstrap file
• CFALLCLASSES: Special variables, Cfagent Runtime Options
• cfrc: cfrc resource file
• ChangedBefore(): Evaluated classes
• ChecksumDatabase: ChecksumDatabase
• ChecksumUpdates: ChecksumUpdates
• checktimezone: actionsequence
• childlinks: actionsequence
• control: control
• create: create
• directories: actionsequence
• disable: actionsequence, disable
• domain: control, domain
• DryRun: dryrun
• editbinaryfilesize: editbinaryfilesize
• editfiles: actionsequence
• editfilesize: control, editfilesize
• empty: disable
• EmptyResolvConf: emptyresolvconf
• Exclamation: exclamation
• exclude=: Syntax
• FileExtensions: fileextension
• files: actionsequence, files
• filter: filters
• force=: copy, disks
• freespace=: required, disks
• g=: Syntax
• group: Syntax
• groups: groups
• home: Syntax
• homepattern: mountables
• HomePattern: homepattern
• homeservers: homeservers
• import: import
• include=: Syntax
• interface configuration: interfaces
• InterfaceName: interfacename
• IsDir(): Evaluated classes
• IsLink(): Evaluated classes
• IsNewerThan(): Evaluated classes
• IsPlain(): Evaluated classes
• l=: Syntax
• LD_LIBRARY_PATH: control
• link: Syntax
• linkchildren: Link Children, Files linkchildren
• links: links, actionsequence
• m=: Syntax
• mailcheck: mailserver, actionsequence
• mailserver: mailserver
• MaxCfengines: Special variables
• miscmounts: miscmounts
• mode: Syntax
• module:: actionsequence
• moduledirectory: moduledirectory
• mountables: homeservers, mountables
• mountall: actionsequence
• mountinfo: actionsequence
• mountpattern: mountpattern
• netconfig: actionsequence
• netmask: control, netmask
• nfstype: control, nfstype
• o=: Syntax
• ones: broadcast
• OutputPrefix: Special variables
• owner: Syntax
• p=: tidy
• pattern: tidy
• processes: actionsequence
• purge=: copy
• r=: Syntax, tidy
• recurse: tidy, Syntax
• repchar: Special variables
• RepChar: repchar
• required: actionsequence
• resolve: actionsequence, resolve
• Restricting access: access
• ReturnsZero(): Evaluated classes
• rotate=: disable
• scheduling: schedule
• SecureInput: secureinput
• sensiblecount: control
• SensibleCount: sensiblecount
• SensibleSize: sensiblesize
• sensiblesize: control
• shellcommands: actionsequence
• ShowActions: showactions
• singlelinks: actionsequence
• site: site, control
• smtpserver: Cfexecd reference
• split: split, Special variables
• SpoolDirectories: spooldirectories
• SuspiciousNames: suspiciousnames
• sysadm: Cfexecd reference, control, sysadm
• tidy: tidy, actionsequence
• timezone: control
• touch: touch
• truncate: disable
• type=: disable, Hard links
• underscoreclasses: Special variables
• unmount: unmount, actionsequence
• Wildcards: tidy
• zeroes: broadcast
• zeros: broadcast

Concept Index

• !: Cfengine classes
• --dry-run option: shellcommands
• -D option: addclasses
• -l option: tidy, Syntax
• -L option: Single links
• -x option: cf.preconf bootstrap file
• .cfdisabled: disable
• .cfengine.rm: tidy
• .cfnew files: copy
• .cfsaved files: Multiple Links
• .X11 directory: ignore
• /etc/host.conf: cf.preconf bootstrap file
• /etc/hosts.equiv: disable
• /var/cfengine/output: Cfexecd reference
• Absolute links: Single links
• Access control: access
• Access control lists: acl
• ACL key: ACEs
• ACLs: acl
• action sequence: actionsequence
• Adding defined classes: addclasses
• Adding new classes: cfrc resource file
• AFS: nfstype
• allclasses variable: shellcommands
• AllowConnectionsFrom variable: AllowConnectionsFrom
• AllowUsers in cfservd: AllowUsers
• Andrew filesystem: nfstype
• atime tidies: tidy
• AutoCreate: editfiles
• AutoExecInterval variable: AutoExecInterval
• automounter: editfiles
• awk, editing: editfiles
• Backup of files in copy: copy
• BeginGroupIfDefined: editfiles
• BeginGroupIfFileExists: editfiles
• BeginGroupIfFileIsNewer: editfiles
• BeginGroupIfNotDefined: editfiles
• Binary servers and links: Link Children, Single links
• Binary servers, defining: binservers
• Binary servers, priority: binservers, Single links
• Bootstrap file: cf.preconf bootstrap file
• Broadcast address: broadcast
• Broadcasts to the cfengine service.: cfrun
• CatchAbort: editfiles
• cf.groups: cf.groups
• cf.main: cf.main
• cf.motd: cf.motd
• cf.preconf bootstrap file: cf.preconf bootstrap file
• cf.site: cf.site, cfservd.conf
• cfagent.conf: cfagent.conf
• CFALLCLASSES: shellcommands, Special variables
• cfenvd and key entropy: Cfkey
• cfexecd: Cfexecd reference
• cfrc resource file: cfrc resource file
• cfrun, limiting users on server: AllowUsers
• cfrunCommand variable: cfrunCommand
• cfservd.conf file: Cfservd.conf and cfrun reference
• Changing cfengine port: Firewalls and NATs
• Checksum warning, turning off exclamation: exclamation
• ChecksumDatabase: ChecksumDatabase
• ChecksumDatabase variable: ChecksumDatabase in cfservd
• ChecksumUpdates: ChecksumUpdates
• CIDR: groups
• Class data and scripts: Special variables
• Class decided by shell command: groups
• Class dependencies: groups
• Class information, passing to scripts: shellcommands
• classes: groups
• classes: Cfengine classes
• classes: classes
• Classes, adding and defining: addclasses
• Classes, compound: Cfengine classes
• Classes, defining and undefining: Cfengine classes
• Classes, inbuilt functions: Evaluated classes
• Classless IP addresses: groups
• Comparing file objects: Evaluated classes
• Compound classes: Cfengine classes
• Contacting specific hosts with cfrun: cfrun
• control section: control
• Controlling the size of log files: disable
• copy: copy
• Copy, exact filetree images: copy
• Copying files: copy
• Creating files: create
• ctime tidies: tidy
• DCE key: DFS ACLs
• Deadlock: cf.preconf bootstrap file
• Deadlock zombie bug in restart: processes
• Declaring classes: addinstallable
• Decrementing line pointer in editfiles: editfiles
• Defining a binary server: binservers
• Defining a home server: homeservers
• Defining a mail server: mailserver
• Defining a mountable: mountables
• Defining before use: addinstallable
• Defining classes: classes, addclasses
• Defining groups: groups
• DeleteNonOwnerMail: deletenonownerfiles
• DeleteNonUserFiles: deletenonownerfiles
• DeleteNonUserMail DeleteNonUserFiles: deletenonuserfiles
• Deleting directories: tidy
• Deleting files: tidy
• Deleting stale links: Syntax, tidy
• DenyBadClocks variable: DenyBadClocks
• DenyConnectionsFrom variable: DenyConnectionsFrom
• Dependencies: groups
• Device boundaries: copy
• Device boundaries and files: Recursion
• DFS: nfstype
• DHCP: DynamicAddresses, actionsequence
• Directories, deleting: tidy
• Directories, hidden: fileextension
• Directories, making: directories
• Directory for cfengine modules: moduledirectory
• Directory permissions: Directory permissions
• Disabling file types: disable
• Disabling files: disable
• disks actions: disks
• DNS: resolve
• domain: domain
• Domain name: netmask
• Dots in hostnames: Cfengine classes
• Double quotes: editfiles
• DryRun: dryrun
• Dual homed hosts: interfaces
• Dynamic addresses: DynamicAddresses
• DynamicAddresses variable: DynamicAddresses
• Empty files: tidy
• Emptying old nameservers from /etc/resolv.conf: emptyresolvconf
• Environment variable CFALLCLASSES: Cfagent Runtime Options
• Example configuration files: Example configuration file
• Exclamation marks, turning off: exclamation
• Excluding classes: addclasses
• Excluding files from a file sweep: Syntax
• Field separator in editfiles: editfiles
• File images (copy): copy
• File management: files
• File sizes, specifying: tidy
• File tree images: copy
• File types: Evaluated classes
• Files, breaking up into several: import
• Files, checking permissions: files
• Files, home wildcard: home directive
• Files, importing: import
• Files, ownership: Owner and group wildcards
• Files, recursion: Recursion
• Files, setting owner: files
• Files, syntax: Syntax
• Force copying: copy
• freespace=: required, disks
• Full disk warnings: required, disks
• Fully qualified names: Cfengine classes
• Group dependencies: groups
• Group field, editing: editfiles
• groups: groups
• groups: classes
• Groups, defining: groups
• Hard class name collision: Special variables
• Hardlinks: Hard links
• Hashes of files: Syntax, ChecksumDatabase
• home directive: home directive
• Home path: homepattern
• Home servers, defining: homeservers
• home wildcard: Syntax
• Homepattern variable.: mountables
• Host name gets truncated: Cfengine classes
• Hostname collision: Special variables
• Hung machine: cf.preconf bootstrap file
• ignore command: ignore
• Import files, variables in: import
• Importing files: import
• Incrementing line pointer in editfiles: editfiles
• Interface name, redefining by class: interfacename
• InterfaceName: interfacename
• Internal classes, switching off: Cfagent Runtime Options
• Internet address: netmask
• IP address: netmask
• Iterating over lists in shellcommands: shellcommands
• Iteration over lists: split
• Key entropy and cfenvd: Cfkey
• Key security of users: AllowUsers
• Key, ACL: DFS ACLs
• Kilobyte, filesize unit: tidy
• Linkchildren: Link Children, Files linkchildren
• Links and binary servers: Single links, Link Children
• Links, absolute: Single links
• Links, deleting stale: Syntax, tidy
• Links, forcing for non-existent files: Single links
• Links, making: links
• Links, multiple: Multiple Links
• Links, removing dead: Single links
• Links, single: Single links
• Links, traversing in searches: Syntax, tidy
• Local disk space, make use of: Link Children
• Log files, controlling the size of: disable
• Logical NOT: Cfengine classes
• Mail server, defining: mailserver
• Mailing output: Cfexecd reference
• Making directories: directories
• Making links: links
• Making paths: directories
• Making use of local disk space: Link Children
• MaxConnections variable: MaxConnections
• Megabytes, filesize unit: tidy
• Message digests: Syntax, ChecksumDatabase
• Miscellaneous mount operations: miscmounts
• Module directory: moduledirectory
• Modules, user defined: actionsequence
• Mount paths: mountpattern
• Mountable resources, defining: homeservers, mountables
• Mounted filesystems: copy
• Mounting filesystems.: miscmounts
• mtime tidies: tidy
• Multiple links: Multiple Links
• Name collision: Special variables
• NAT: Firewalls and NATs
• Negating classes: actionsequence
• Negating entries from netgroups: groups
• Netgroups: groups
• Netgroups, negating entries: groups
• Netmask: netmask
• netmask: netmask
• Network address translator: Firewalls and NATs
• Network Address Translators: SkipVerify
• Network interfaces, several: interfaces
• New systems, support for: cfrc resource file
• nfs: nfstype
• NFS filesystems and disk checking: disks
• NFS mount model and automounter: editfiles
• nfstype: nfstype
• NIS, netgroup support: groups
• NOT operator: Cfengine classes
• NT, ACL: NT ACLs
• ones: broadcast
• Operator ordering: Cfengine classes
• Output logs: Cfexecd reference
• Ownership of files: Owner and group wildcards
• Password file, editing: editfiles
• Path to home directories: homepattern
• Path to mounted filesystems: mountpattern
• Paths, making: directories
• Pattern matching in file sweeps: Syntax
• Percentage disk space: required
• Permissions, directories: Directory permissions
• Port, connecting to different: Firewalls and NATs
• Preserving file times in copy: copy
• Previewing shellcommands: shellcommands
• PRNG not seeded: Cfkey
• Processes, 0 to 3: processes
• Processes, checking existence of: processes
• Processes, counting: processes
• Processes, signalling: processes
• Public keys: copy
• Quoted strings: editfiles
• Recursion in files: Recursion
• Relative links: Single links
• Removing directories: tidy
• Removing entries from netgroups: groups
• Renaming files: disable
• Replacing file by link: disable
• Repository filenames, changing: repchar
• resolv.conf: resolve
• Resolver configuration: resolve
• Resource file: cfrc resource file
• Restart zombie deadlock bug: processes
• Restricting the size of binary files to be edited: editbinaryfilesize
• Restricting the size of files to be edited: editfilesize
• rmdirs: tidy
• Rotating log files: disable
• Running cfengine from a single master host: cfrun
• Running cfrun: cfrun
• scheduling: schedule
• Scripts and class information: shellcommands
• Scripts, passing classes to: Special variables
• Search patterns in files: Syntax
• Searching for home directories: homepattern
• Searching, advanced: filters
• Secure input: secureinput
• Security risk: SkipVerify
• Security: link races and travlinks: tidy
• sed, editing: editfiles
• Selecting files in searches: filters
• Sensible file sizes: sensiblesize
• Sensible limits on files in a directory: sensiblecount
• Setting classes based on non-local disks: disks
• Setting uid on restarted processes: processes
• Several files: import
• Shell command to decide class: groups
• Single links: Single links
• Single quotes: editfiles
• site: site
• size field in disable: disable
• Specifying file sizes: tidy
• SplayTime in cfrun: cfrun
• split: split
• SplitOn: editfiles
• SpoolDirectories: spooldirectories
• Subnet mask: netmask
• Support for new systems: cfrc resource file
• suspiciousnames: suspiciousnames
• Switching off backup in copy: copy
• Switching off internal classes: Cfagent Runtime Options
• Symbolic links, absolute: Single links
• Symbolic links, relative: Single links
• sysadm: sysadm
• Testing files: Evaluated classes
• Tidy by ctime, mtime, atime: tidy
• Tidy log files for users: LogTidyHomeFiles
• Tidying empty files: tidy
• Tidying files: tidy
• timeout= in shellcommands: shellcommands
• Timeouts during iterations: shellcommands
• Too many open files error: Too many open files
• Touching files: touch
• travlinks: tidy
• Tree copying, exact: copy
• Tripwire functionality: ChecksumDatabase, Syntax
• Truncating log files: disable
• Trusted hosts: copy
• TrustKeysFrom variable: TrustKeysFrom
• umask: editfiles, shellcommands, processes
• underscoreclasses: Special variables
• Unmounting filesystems: unmount
• Variables in import files: import
• Warning about full disks: required, disks
• Wildcard home: Syntax
• Wildcards in homepattern: homepattern
• WWW server logs: disable
• xdev (File system boundaries): Recursion
• zeros: broadcast

FAQ Index

• Brackets (parentheses) in classes.: Cfengine classes
• Can't stat error when remote copying: DenyBadClocks
• Changing repository name conventions: repchar
• Checksums take too long to compute.: ChecksumDatabase in cfservd
• copy doesn't always copy files: copy
• ctime copy doesn't always copy files: copy
• Denial of service attacks: AllowConnectionsFrom
• Hanging commands, timeouts: shellcommands
• Hanging connections attacks: AllowConnectionsFrom
• Hey! Cannot stat file error: copy
• How can I avoid hanging shellcommands?: shellcommands
• How can I set a timeout for a shell command?: shellcommands
• How to create files while editing: editfiles
• Iterating over lists: split
• MD5 checksums take a long time to compute.: ChecksumDatabase in cfservd
• Parentheses in classes.: Cfengine classes
• Remote copy problems, can't stat: copy
• Too many open files error: Too many open files

• Cfengine-Reference
• Inroduction to reference manual
  • Installation
  • Work directory
  • Cfengine hard classes
  • Evaluated classes
  • Filenames and paths
• Cfkey reference
• Cfagent reference
  • Cfagent intro
    • The file cfagent.conf
    • Cfagent runtime options
  • Special variables
  • Cfengine classes
  • acl
    • Access control entries
    • Solaris ACLs
    • DFS ACLs
    • NT ACLs
  • ACL Example
    • ACL Example
  • binservers
  • broadcast
  • control
    • access
    • actionsequence
    • AddClasses
    • AddInstallable
    • BinaryPaddingChar
    • ChecksumDatabase
    • ChecksumUpdates
    • ChildLibPath
    • CopyLinks
    • DefaultCopyType
    • DeleteNonUserFiles
    • DeleteNonOwnerFiles
    • DeleteNonUserMail
    • DeleteNonOwnerMail
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