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.. -*- mode: rst -*-
.. _getting_started-using_bcfg2_info:
================
Using bcfg2-info
================
*bcfg2-info* is a tool for introspecting server functions. It is
useful for understanding how the server is interpreting your
repository. It consists of the same logic executed by the server to
process the repository and produce configuration specifications, just
without all of the network communication code. Think of *bcfg2-info*
as *bcfg2-server* on a stick. It is a useful location to do testing
and staging of new configuration rules, prior to deployment. This is
particularly useful when developing templates, or developing Bcfg2
plugins.
Getting Started
===============
First, fire up the bcfg2-info interpreter.
.. code-block:: none
[0:464] bcfg2-info
Loading experimental plugin(s): Packages
NOTE: Interfaces subject to change
Handled 8 events in 0.006s
Handled 4 events in 0.035s
Welcome to bcfg2-info
Type "help" for more information
>
At this point, the server core has been loaded up, all plugins have
been loaded, and the *bcfg2-info* has both read the initial state of
the Bcfg2 repository, as well as begun monitoring it for changes. Like
*bcfg2-server*, *bcfg2-info* monitors the repository for changes,
however, unlike *bcfg2-server*, it does not process change events
automatically. File modification events can be processed by explicitly
calling the **update** command. This will process the events,
displaying the number of events processed and the amount of time taken
by this processing. If no events are available, no message will be
displayed. For example, after a change to a file in the repository:
.. code-block:: none
>update
Handled 1 events in 0.001s
> update
>
This explicit update process allows you to control the update process,
as well as see the precise changes caused by repository
modifications.
*bcfg2-info* has several builtin commands that display the state of
various internal server core state. These are most useful for
examining the state of client metadata, either for a single client, or
for clients overall.
**clients**
displays a list of clients, along with their profile groups
**groups**
displays a list of groups, the inheritance hierarchy, profile
status, and category name, if there is one.
**showclient**
displays full metadata information for a client, including
profile group, group memberships, bundle list, and any connector
data, like Probe values or Property info.
Debugging Configuration Rules
=============================
In addition to the commands listed above for viewing client metadata,
there are also commands which can shed light on the configuration
generation process. Recall that configuration generation occurs in
three major steps:
1) Resolve client metadata
2) Build list of entries for the configuration
3) Bind host-specific version of each entry
Step *1* can be viewed with the commands presented in the previous
section. The latter two steps can be examined using the following
commands.
**showentries**
displays a list of entries (optionally filtered by type) that
appear in a client's configuration specification
**buildfile**
Perform the entry binding process on a single entry, displaying
its results. This command is very useful when developing
configuration file templates.
**build**
Build the full configuration specification and write it to a
file.
**mappings**
displays the entries handled by the plugins loaded by the server
core. This command is useful when the server reports a bind
failure for an entry.
Debugging and Developing Bcfg2
==============================
*bcfg2-info* loads a full Bcfg2 server core, so it provides the ideal
environment for developing and debugging Bcfg2. Because it is hard to
automate this sort of process, we have only implemented two commands
in *bcfg2-info* to aid in the process.
**profile**
The profile command produces python profiling information for
other *bcfg2-info* commands. This can be used to track
performance problems in configuration generation.
**debug**
The debug command exits the *bcfg2-info* interpreter loop and
drops to a python interpreter prompt. The Bcfg2 server core is
available in this namespace as "self". Full documentation for
the server core is out of scope for this document. This
capability is most useful to call into plugin methods, often with
setup calls or the enabling of diagnostics.
It is possible to return to the *bcfg2-info* command loop by
exiting the python interpreter with ^D.
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