Looking for help?

• Chat with us in #CFEngine:matrix.org.
• Ask questions on Github Discussions or the mailing list help-cfengine@googlegroups.com.

CFEngine 3 is a popular open source configuration management system. Its primary function is to provide automated configuration and maintenance of large-scale computer systems.

The MPF or Masterfiles Policy Framework is intended to provide a stable base policy for installations and upgrades, and is used by both CFEngine Enterprise and CFEngine community in versions 3.6 and newer. The documentation for the MPF is highly recommended.

There are several methods available for installing the CFEngine Masterfiles Policy Framework.

• From pkg tarball
• From git
• From source tarball

If you have downloaded a package tarball from our website (not from github), you don't need to autogen, configure or make anything. Instead simply unpack the tarball to the desired location using tar.

For example:

tar zxvf cfengine-masterfiles-MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH.pkg.tar.gz /var/cfengine/masterfiles

Clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/cfengine/masterfiles

If you have cloned the repository from github:

Run autogen and make to build masterfiles.

./autogen.sh
make

Optionally configure masterfiles to install to a different location (perhaps your own version control checkout)

./configure --prefix=/tmp/cfengine/
make

make install

If you have downloaded a release tarball from our website (not from github), you don't need to run autogen.sh. By default it installs in /var/cfengine/masterfiles but you can override that easily:

./configure --prefix=/install/directory
make install

Note that the last directory component will always be called masterfiles.

A very important piece of functionality, which you may want for your own use but will certainly be helpful for debugging or submitting bugs to CFEngine (core, masterfiles, or any other are) is the host report.

Run the host report like so: cf-agent -b host_info_report

You should see output like:

R: Host info report generated and available at '/var/cfengine/reports/host_info_report.txt'

Take a look at the resulting file, it has lots of useful information about the system.

Please see the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

The CFEngine masterfiles are under the MIT license, see LICENSE

CFEngine was originally created by Mark Burgess with many contributions from around the world. Thanks everyone!

CFEngine is sponsored by Northern.tech AS