Once you have your bcfg2 server setup and working, a common next step to take is automating the addition of new clients.
The method for bootstrapping your clients will vary depending on your needs. The simplest way to go about this is to create a public default group in Metadata/groups.xml. Example:
<Group profile='true' name='basic' public='true' default='true'>
This allows clients to freely associate themselves with this group so that you will not be required to manually add them to Metadata/clients.xml prior to running the client.
Note
Reverse DNS will need to work in order to automate the process of bootstrapping clients without first adding them to Metadata/clients.xml.
There are command line options available on the client which allow you to specify the options that are normally found in the client’s /etc/bcfg2.conf:
bcfg2 -x password -p basic -S https://bcfg2-server:6789
The above command will add the client to Metadata/clients.xml with the profile basic. Generally, you should include /etc/bcfg2.conf in the configuration given to the client by the bcfg2 server in this initial run to avoid specifying these options on future runs.