CFEngine Provisioner

Provisioner name: cfengine

The Vagrant CFEngine provisioner allows you to provision the guest using CFEngine. It can set up both CFEngine policy servers and clients. You can configure both the policy server and the clients in a single multi-machine Vagrantfile.

Let us look at some common examples first. See the bottom of this document for a comprehensive list of options.

Setting up a CFEngine server and client

The CFEngine provisioner automatically installs the latest CFEngine Community packages on the VM, then configures and starts CFEngine according to your specification.

Configuring a VM as a CFEngine policy server is easy:

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.provision "cfengine" do |cf|
    cf.am_policy_hub = true
  end
end

The host will automatically be bootstrapped to itself to become a policy server.

If you already have a working CFEngine policy server, you can get a CFEngine client installed and bootstrapped by specifying its IP address:

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.provision "cfengine" do |cf|
    cf.policy_server_address = "10.0.2.15"
  end
end

Copying files to the VM

If you have some policy or other files that you want to install by default on a VM, you can use the files_path attribute:

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
   config.vm.provision "cfengine" do |cf|
      cf.am_policy_hub = true
      cf.files_path = "cfengine_files"
    end
  end

Everything under cfengine_files/ in the Vagrant project directory will be recursively copied under /var/cfengine/ in the VM, on top of its default contents.

A common use case is to add your own files to /var/cfengine/masterfiles/ in the policy server. Assuming your extra files are stored under cfengine_files/masterfiles/, the line shown above will add them to the VM after CFEngine is installed, but before it is bootstrapped.

Modes of operation

The default mode of operation is :bootstrap, which results in CFEngine being bootstrapped according to the information provided in the Vagrantfile. You can also set mode to :single_run, which will run cf-agent once on the host to execute the file specified in the run_file parameter, but will not bootstrap it, so it will not be executed periodically.

The recommended mode of operation is :bootstrap, as you get the full benefits of CFEngine when you have it running periodically.

Running a standalone file

If you want to run a standalone file, you can specify the run_file parameter. The file will be copied to the VM and executed on its own using cf-agent. Note that the file needs to be a standalone policy, including its own body common control.

The run_file parameter is mandatory if mode is set to :single_run, but can also be specified when mode is set to :bootstrap - in this case the file will be executed after the host has been bootstrapped.

Full Alphabetical List of Configuration Options

• am_policy_hub (boolean, default false) determines whether the VM will be configured as a CFEngine policy hub (automatically bootstrapped to its own IP address). You can combine it with policy_server_address if the VM has multiple network interfaces and you want to bootstrap to a specific one.
• extra_agent_args (string, default nil) can be used to pass additional arguments to cf-agent when it is executed. For example, you could use it to pass the -I or -v options to enable additional output from the agent.
• classes (array, default nil) can be used to define additional classes during cf-agent runs. These classes will be defined using the -D option to cf-agent.
• deb_repo_file (string, default "/etc/apt/sources.list.d/cfengine-community.list") specifies the file in which the CFEngine repository information will be stored in Debian systems.
• deb_repo_line (string, default "deb https://cfengine.com/pub/apt $(lsb_release -cs) main") specifies the repository to use for .deb packages.
• files_path (string, default nil) specifies a directory that will be copied to the VM on top of the default /var/cfengine/ (the contents of /var/cfengine/ will not be replaced, the files will added to it).
• force_bootstrap (boolean, default false) specifies whether CFEngine will be bootstrapped again even if the host has already been bootstrapped.
• install (boolean or :force, default true) specifies whether CFEngine will be installed on the VM if needed. If you set this parameter to :force, then CFEngine will be reinstalled even if it is already present on the machine.
• mode (:bootstrap or :single_run, default :bootstrap) specifies whether CFEngine will be bootstrapped so that it executes periodically, or will be run a single time. If mode is set to :single_run you have to set run_file.
• policy_server_address (string, no default) specifies the IP address of the policy server to which CFEngine will be bootstrapped. If am_policy_hub is set to true, this parameter defaults to the VM's IP address, but can still be set (for example, if the VM has more than one network interface).
• repo_gpg_key_url (string, default "https://cfengine.com/pub/gpg.key") contains the URL to obtain the GPG key used to verify the packages obtained from the repository.
• run_file (string, default nil) can be used to specify a file inside the Vagrant project directory that will be copied to the VM and executed once using cf-agent. This parameter is mandatory if mode is set to :single_run, but can also be specified when mode is set to :bootstrap - in this case the file will be executed after the host has been bootstrapped.
• upload_path (string, default "/tmp/vagrant-cfengine-file") specifies the file to which run_file (if specified) will be copied on the VM before being executed.
• yum_repo_file (string, default "/etc/yum.repos.d/cfengine-community.repo") specifies the file in which the CFEngine repository information will be stored in RedHat systems.
• yum_repo_url (string, default "https://cfengine.com/pub/yum/") specifies the URL of the repository to use for .rpm packages.
• package_name (string, default "cfengine-community") specifies the name of the package used to install CFEngine.