---
layout: default
built_from_commit: 3d665fe7a4a7dfa794748a310db79025a4d932cc
title: 'Man Page: puppet agent'
canonical: "/openvox/latest/man/agent.html"
---

# Man Page: puppet agent

> **NOTE:** This page was generated from the OpenVox source code on 2026-08-01 22:12:56 +0000

## NAME
**puppet-agent** - The puppet agent daemon provided by OpenVox

## SYNOPSIS
Retrieves the client configuration from the OpenVox server and applies
it to the local host.

This service may be run as a daemon, run periodically using cron (or
something similar), or run interactively for testing purposes.

## USAGE
puppet agent \[\--certname *NAME*\]
\[-D\|\--daemonize\|\--no-daemonize\] \[-d\|\--debug\]
\[\--detailed-exitcodes\] \[\--digest *DIGEST*\] \[\--disable
\[MESSAGE\]\] \[\--enable\] \[\--fingerprint\] \[-h\|\--help\]
\[-l\|\--logdest syslog\|eventlog\|*ABS FILEPATH*\|console\]
\[\--serverport *PORT*\] \[\--noop\] \[-o\|\--onetime\]
\[\--sourceaddress *IP_ADDRESS*\] \[-t\|\--test\] \[-v\|\--verbose\]
\[-V\|\--version\] \[-w\|\--waitforcert *SECONDS*\]

## DESCRIPTION
This is the main OpenVox client. Its job is to retrieve the local
machine\'s configuration from a remote server and apply it. In order to
successfully communicate with the remote server, the client must have a
certificate signed by a certificate authority that the server trusts;
the recommended method for this, at the moment, is to run a certificate
authority as part of the OpenVox server (which is the default). The
client will connect and request a signed certificate, and will continue
connecting until it receives one.

Once the client has a signed certificate, it will retrieve its
configuration and apply it.

## USAGE NOTES
\'puppet agent\' does its best to find a compromise between interactive
use and daemon use. If you run it with no arguments and no
configuration, it goes into the background, attempts to get a signed
certificate, and retrieves and applies its configuration every 30
minutes.

Some flags are meant specifically for interactive use \-- in particular,
\'test\', \'tags\' and \'fingerprint\' are useful.

\'\--test\' runs once in the foreground with verbose logging, then
exits. It also exits if it can\'t get a valid catalog. **\--test**
includes the \'\--detailed-exitcodes\' option by default and exits with
one of the following exit codes:

- 0: The run succeeded with no changes or failures; the system was
  already in the desired state.

- 1: The run failed, or wasn\'t attempted due to another run already in
  progress.

- 2: The run succeeded, and some resources were changed.

- 4: The run succeeded, and some resources failed.

- 6: The run succeeded, and included both changes and failures.

\'\--tags\' allows you to specify what portions of a configuration you
want to apply. OpenVox elements are tagged with all of the class or
definition names that contain them, and you can use the \'tags\' flag to
specify one of these names, causing only configuration elements
contained within that class or definition to be applied. This is very
useful when you are testing new configurations \-- for instance, if you
are just starting to manage \'ntpd\', you would put all of the new
elements into an \'ntpd\' class, and call puppet with \'\--tags ntpd\',
which would only apply that small portion of the configuration during
your testing, rather than applying the whole thing.

\'\--fingerprint\' is a one-time flag. In this mode \'puppet agent\'
runs once and displays on the console (and in the log) the current
certificate (or certificate request) fingerprint. Providing the
\'\--digest\' option allows you to use a different digest algorithm to
generate the fingerprint. The main use is to verify that before signing
a certificate request on the server, the certificate request the server
received is the same as the one the client sent (to prevent against
man-in-the-middle attacks when signing certificates).

\'\--skip_tags\' is a flag used to filter resources. If this is set,
then only resources not tagged with the specified tags will be applied.
Values must be comma-separated.

## OPTIONS
Note that any OpenVox setting that\'s valid in the configuration file is
also a valid long argument. For example, \'server\' is a valid setting,
so you can specify \'\--server *servername*\' as an argument. Boolean
settings accept a \'\--no-\' prefix to turn off a behavior, translating
into \'\--setting\' and \'\--no-setting\' pairs, such as
**\--daemonize** and **\--no-daemonize**.

See the configuration file documentation at
https://docs.openvoxproject.org/openvox/latest/configuration.html for
the full list of acceptable settings. A commented list of all settings
can also be generated by running puppet agent with \'\--genconfig\'.

- \--certname: Set the certname (unique ID) of the client. The server
  reads this unique identifying string, which is usually set to the
  node\'s fully-qualified domain name, to determine which configurations
  the node will receive. Use this option to debug setup problems or
  implement unusual node identification schemes. (This is an OpenVox
  setting, and can go in puppet.conf.)

- \--daemonize: Send the process into the background. This is the
  default. (This is an OpenVox setting, and can go in puppet.conf. Note
  the special \'no-\' prefix for boolean settings on the command line.)

- \--no-daemonize: Do not send the process into the background. (This is
  an OpenVox setting, and can go in puppet.conf. Note the special
  \'no-\' prefix for boolean settings on the command line.)

- \--debug: Enable full debugging.

- \--detailed-exitcodes: Provide extra information about the run via
  exit codes; works only if \'\--test\' or \'\--onetime\' is also
  specified. If enabled, \'puppet agent\' uses the following exit codes:

  0: The run succeeded with no changes or failures; the system was
  already in the desired state.

  1: The run failed, or wasn\'t attempted due to another run already in
  progress.

  2: The run succeeded, and some resources were changed.

  4: The run succeeded, and some resources failed.

  6: The run succeeded, and included both changes and failures.

- \--digest: Change the certificate fingerprinting digest algorithm. The
  default is SHA256. Valid values depends on the version of OpenSSL
  installed, but will likely contain MD5, MD2, SHA1 and SHA256.

- \--disable: Disable working on the local system. This puts a lock file
  in place, causing \'puppet agent\' not to work on the system until the
  lock file is removed. This is useful if you are testing a
  configuration and do not want the central configuration to override
  the local state until everything is tested and committed.

  Disable can also take an optional message that will be reported by the
  \'puppet agent\' at the next disabled run.

  \'puppet agent\' uses the same lock file while it is running, so no
  more than one \'puppet agent\' process is working at a time.

  \'puppet agent\' exits after executing this.

- \--enable: Enable working on the local system. This removes any lock
  file, causing \'puppet agent\' to start managing the local system
  again However, it continues to use its normal scheduling, so it might
  not start for another half hour.

  \'puppet agent\' exits after executing this.

- \--evaltrace: Logs each resource as it is being evaluated. This allows
  you to interactively see exactly what is being done. (This is an
  OpenVox setting, and can go in puppet.conf. Note the special \'no-\'
  prefix for boolean settings on the command line.)

- \--fingerprint: Display the current certificate or certificate signing
  request fingerprint and then exit. Use the \'\--digest\' option to
  change the digest algorithm used.

- \--help: Print this help message

- \--job-id: Attach the specified job id to the catalog request and the
  report used for this agent run. This option only works when
  \'\--onetime\' is used.

- \--logdest: Where to send log messages. Choose between \'syslog\' (the
  POSIX syslog service), \'eventlog\' (the Windows Event Log),
  \'console\', or the path to a log file. If debugging or verbosity is
  enabled, this defaults to \'console\'. Otherwise, it defaults to
  \'syslog\' on POSIX systems and \'eventlog\' on Windows. Multiple
  destinations can be set using a comma separated list (eg:
  **/path/file1,console,/path/file2**)\"

  A path ending with \'.json\' will receive structured output in JSON
  format. The log file will not have an ending \'\]\' automatically
  written to it due to the appending nature of logging. It must be
  appended manually to make the content valid JSON.

  A path ending with \'.jsonl\' will receive structured output in JSON
  Lines format.

- \--masterport: The port on which to contact the OpenVox Server. (This
  is an OpenVox setting, and can go in puppet.conf. Deprecated in favor
  of the \'serverport\' setting.)

- \--noop: Use \'noop\' mode where the daemon runs in a no-op or dry-run
  mode. This is useful for seeing what changes OpenVox would make
  without actually executing the changes. (This is an OpenVox setting,
  and can go in puppet.conf. Note the special \'no-\' prefix for boolean
  settings on the command line.)

- \--onetime: Run the configuration once. Runs a single (normally
  daemonized) OpenVox run. Useful for interactively running puppet agent
  when used in conjunction with the \--no-daemonize option. (This is an
  OpenVox setting, and can go in puppet.conf. Note the special \'no-\'
  prefix for boolean settings on the command line.)

- \--serverport: The port on which to contact the OpenVox Server. (This
  is an OpenVox setting, and can go in puppet.conf.)

- \--sourceaddress: Set the source IP address for transactions. This
  defaults to automatically selected. (This is an OpenVox setting, and
  can go in puppet.conf.)

- \--test: Enable the most common options used for testing. These are
  \'onetime\', \'verbose\', \'no-daemonize\', \'no-usecacheonfailure\',
  \'detailed-exitcodes\', \'no-splay\', and \'show_diff\'.

- \--trace Prints stack traces on some errors. (This is an OpenVox
  setting, and can go in puppet.conf. Note the special \'no-\' prefix
  for boolean settings on the command line.)

- \--verbose: Turn on verbose reporting.

- \--version: Print the OpenVox agent version number and exit.

- \--waitforcert: This option only matters for daemons that do not yet
  have certificates and it is enabled by default, with a value of 120
  (seconds). This causes \'puppet agent\' to connect to the server every
  2 minutes and ask it to sign a certificate request. This is useful for
  the initial setup of an OpenVox client. You can turn off waiting for
  certificates by specifying a time of 0. (This is an OpenVox setting,
  and can go in puppet.conf.)

- \--write_catalog_summary After compiling the catalog saves the
  resource list and classes list to the node in the state directory
  named classes.txt and resources.txt (This is an OpenVox setting, and
  can go in puppet.conf.)

## EXAMPLE
    $ puppet agent --server puppet.domain.com

## DIAGNOSTICS
OpenVox agent accepts the following signals:

SIGHUP

:   Restart the OpenVox agent daemon.

SIGINT and SIGTERM

:   Shut down the OpenVox agent daemon.

SIGUSR1

:   Immediately retrieve and apply configurations from the OpenVox
    server.

SIGUSR2

:   Close file descriptors for log files and reopen them. Used with
    logrotate.

## AUTHOR
Luke Kanies

## COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2011 Puppet Inc.; Copyright (c) 2024 Vox Pupuli. Licensed
under the Apache 2.0 License
