<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0 — Bcfg2 1.3.0 documentation</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/default.css" type="text/css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/pygments.css" type="text/css" /> <script type="text/javascript"> var DOCUMENTATION_OPTIONS = { URL_ROOT: '', VERSION: '1.3.0', COLLAPSE_INDEX: false, FILE_SUFFIX: '.html', HAS_SOURCE: true }; </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="_static/jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="_static/underscore.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="_static/doctools.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="_static/sidebar.js"></script> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="_static/favicon.ico"/> <link rel="top" title="Bcfg2 1.3.0 documentation" href="#" /> <link rel="next" title="Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0" href="contents.html" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/bcfg2.css" type=""/> </head> <body> <div style="text-align: left; padding: 10px 10px 15px 15px"> <a href="#"><img src="_static/bcfg2_logo.png" border="0" alt="sampledoc"/></a> </div> <div class="related"> <h3>Navigation</h3> <ul> <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px"> <a href="genindex.html" title="General Index" accesskey="I">index</a></li> <li class="right" > <a href="py-modindex.html" title="Python Module Index" >modules</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="contents.html" title="Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0" accesskey="N">next</a> |</li> <li><a href="#">home</a> | </li> <!--<li><a href="search.html">search</a> | </li>--> <li><a href="help/index.html">help</a> | </li> <li><a href="contents.html">documentation </a> »</li> </ul> </div> <div class="document"> <div class="documentwrapper"> <div class="bodywrapper"> <div class="body"> <div class="section" id="bcfg2-documentation-release"> <span id="index"></span><h1>Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0<a class="headerlink" href="#bcfg2-documentation-release" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1> <div class="section" id="what-is-bcfg2"> <h2>What is Bcfg2?<a class="headerlink" href="#what-is-bcfg2" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2> <p>Bcfg2 helps system administrators produce a consistent, reproducible, and verifiable description of their environment, and offers visualization and reporting tools to aid in day-to-day administrative tasks. It is the fifth generation of configuration management tools developed in the <a class="reference external" href="http://www.mcs.anl.gov/">Mathematics and Computer Science Division</a> of <a class="reference external" href="http://www.anl.gov/">Argonne National Laboratory</a>.</p> <p>It is based on an operational model in which the specification can be used to validate and optionally change the state of clients, but in a feature unique to Bcfg2 the client’s response to the specification can also be used to assess the completeness of the specification. Using this feature, Bcfg2 provides an objective measure of how good a job an administrator has done in specifying the configuration of client systems. Bcfg2 is therefore built to help administrators construct an accurate, comprehensive specification.</p> <p>Bcfg2 has been designed from the ground up to support gentle reconciliation between the specification and current client states. It is designed to gracefully cope with manual system modifications.</p> <p>Finally, due to the rapid pace of updates on modern networks, client systems are constantly changing; if required in your environment, Bcfg2 can enable the construction of complex change management and deployment strategies.</p> <div class="toctree-wrapper compound"> <ul> <li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="contents.html">Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="introduction/index.html">Introduction</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="installation/index.html">Installation</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="getting_started/index.html">Getting started</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="architecture/index.html">Detailed Bcfg2 Architecture</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="server/index.html">The Bcfg2 Server</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="client/index.html">The Bcfg2 Client</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="reports/index.html">The Bcfg2 Reporting System</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="development/index.html">Bcfg2 Development</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="help/index.html">Getting Help with Bcfg2</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="glossary.html">Glossary</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="appendix/index.html">Appendix</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="man/index.html">Man Pages</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="unsorted/index.html">Unsorted Docs</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="contents.html#indices-glossary-and-tables">Indices, glossary and tables</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sphinxsidebar"> <div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper"> <h3><a href="#">Table Of Contents</a></h3> <ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#">Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0</a><ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#what-is-bcfg2">What is Bcfg2?</a><ul> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h4>Next topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="contents.html" title="next chapter">Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0</a></p> <h3>This Page</h3> <ul class="this-page-menu"> <li><a href="_sources/index.txt" rel="nofollow">Show Source</a></li> </ul><!-- FIXME: Add download page with pdf/html/txt archives of these documents <h3>Download</h3> <p><a href="download.html">Download these documents</a></p> --> <h3>Docs for other versions</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://docs.bcfg2.org/1.1/">Bcfg2 1.1 (stable)</a></li> <li><a href="http://docs.bcfg2.org/1.2/">Bcfg2 1.2 (stable)</a></li> <li><a href="http://docs.bcfg2.org/dev/">Bcfg2 development documentation</a></li> </ul> <div id="searchbox" style="display: none"> <h3>Quick search</h3> <form class="search" action="search.html" method="get"> <input type="text" name="q" /> <input type="submit" value="Go" /> <input type="hidden" name="check_keywords" value="yes" /> <input type="hidden" name="area" value="default" /> </form> <p class="searchtip" style="font-size: 90%"> Enter search terms or a module, class or function name. </p> </div> <script type="text/javascript">$('#searchbox').show(0);</script> </div> </div> <div class="clearer"></div> </div> <div class="related"> <h3>Navigation</h3> <ul> <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px"> <a href="genindex.html" title="General Index" >index</a></li> <li class="right" > <a href="py-modindex.html" title="Python Module Index" >modules</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="contents.html" title="Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0" >next</a> |</li> <li><a href="#">home</a> | </li> <!--<li><a href="search.html">search</a> | </li>--> <li><a href="help/index.html">help</a> | </li> <li><a href="contents.html">documentation </a> »</li> </ul> </div> <div class="footer"> © Copyright 2009-2013, Narayan Desai. 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