Bootstrapping a Client

CFE3.2+ cf-agent includes an option for bootstrapping the client. This uses a basic "update.cf" that is built into the cf-agent. Essentially what is does is to contact the specified server and fetch all files from /var/cfengine/masterfiles. The policy host msucfe is setup with a basic set of files at this path to enable a clean bootstrapping of clients.

Note that msucfe doesn't trust unknown clients, so the client's keys must be copied in before this can go. Normally, the client build process (ROCKS or kickstart script) will do this.

Using the bootstrap is an easy way to reset a client if it has lost the plot on CFE.

Anyways, once the keys are established, we just do:

echo '/var/cfengine/masterfiles-prod' > /var/cfengine/policy_path.dat
echo '10.10.128.10' > /var/cfengine/policy_server.dat
cf-agent -B -s 10.10.128.10
cf-agent -K
cf-agent -K
tail -1 /var/cfengine/promise-summary.log

-- TomRockwell - 10 May 2012