"admit:" with cfrun-operated client ; update.conf syntax error ; non-terminating shellcommands

[Tomas A. Maly]

Hi,

Two questions.

------------------------
Question #1

If I only use cfengine to push changes via "cfrun" from a central 
computer, do the clients I am pushing onto need to have the admit: 
section filled out in cfservd.conf ? Or can I put a "$(policyhost)::" 
class reference within "admit:" and have nothing other than that?

-------------------------
Question #2

I'm using cfengine in a situation where I want to use it on the main 
server (the policy host) that it is executed from itself.

I would like to insert into update.conf a way so that the server I run 
cfrun from does not copy any files, but all other computers that run 
cfagent will copy them. Now I can insert a "!server::" to specify that 
all hosts except "server" should perform the file copies following it. 
This works fine and dandy.

If I use "!$(policyhost)::" instead, this barfs and says "Copy attribute 
with no value...Illegal copy attribute", referencing that line number.

What gives!

In _general_, how can I reference it such that I want all hosts _except_ 
the policy host (given that it's defined as $(policyhost) )?

------------------------------
Another question.

Is cfengine at all possible at operating shellcommands that do not 
return (except upon ^C), such as "tail -f"? cfengine seems to wait until 
program termination before printing the program output. Is there a way 
with cfengine around this?

Would it at all be possible to use SSH (either using Kerberos or RSA key 
authentication) and then run cfagent? Another way of asking this is, 
that is it cfagent that prints output upon program termination, or is it 
cfrun?

I personally don't mind using a secure password-less SSH, I simply want 
to use the cfengine-style way of performing tasks (by defining classes 
via -D).

Thanks.