<!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>Introduction — 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="../index.html" /> <link rel="up" title="Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0" href="../contents.html" /> <link rel="next" title="Architecture Overview" href="architecture-overview.html" /> <link rel="prev" 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="../index.html"><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="architecture-overview.html" title="Architecture Overview" accesskey="N">next</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="../contents.html" title="Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0" accesskey="P">previous</a> |</li> <li><a href="../index.html">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> <li><a href="../contents.html" accesskey="U">Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0</a> »</li> </ul> </div> <div class="document"> <div class="documentwrapper"> <div class="bodywrapper"> <div class="body"> <div class="section" id="introduction"> <span id="introduction-index"></span><h1>Introduction<a class="headerlink" href="#introduction" title="Permalink to this headline">ΒΆ</a></h1> <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="architecture-overview.html">Architecture Overview</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="architecture-overview.html#server">Server</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="architecture-overview.html#client">Client</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="os-support.html">What Operating Systems Does Bcfg2 Support?</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sphinxsidebar"> <div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper"> <h4>Previous topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="../contents.html" title="previous chapter">Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0</a></p> <h4>Next topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="architecture-overview.html" title="next chapter">Architecture Overview</a></p> <h3>This Page</h3> <ul class="this-page-menu"> <li><a href="../_sources/introduction/index.txt" rel="nofollow">Show Source</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="architecture-overview.html" title="Architecture Overview" >next</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="../contents.html" title="Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0" >previous</a> |</li> <li><a href="../index.html">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> <li><a href="../contents.html" >Bcfg2 documentation 1.3.0</a> »</li> </ul> </div> <div class="footer"> © Copyright 2009-2013, Narayan Desai. 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