KEA-CTRL-AGENT(8)

📦
version 3.0.4 · 22 versions
, in fedora 43

✨ KEA-CTRL-AGENT(8) ✨

okay bestie, so you're looking at the kea-ctrl-agent page from the Kea manual, section 8. yes, that Kea. the DHCP one. sit down, we're gonna get you fluent in it 💅

🌸 NAME 🌸

kea-ctrl-agent — the Control Agent process in Kea, aka the lil middle-manager of your whole DHCP empire 👑

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

kea-ctrl-agent [-v] [-V] [-W] [-d] [-c config-file] [-t config-file]

that's it. that's the whole entrance. no drama, just flags 🎀

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so here's the tea: kea-ctrl-agent hands you a REST service for controlling Kea services. it's giving front desk energy.

the way it works is so satisfying actually: HTTP requests come in, get decapsulated (unwrapped, de-boxed, set free 🦋), and then forwarded to the respective Kea services as JSON. then the JSON responses come back, get encapsulated back inside HTTP responses, and get returned to whoever was controlling it. full circle, no cap.

and here's the plot twist: some commands might get handled by the Control Agent directly, and never get forwarded to any Kea service at all. main character behavior fr fr ✨

⭐ ARGUMENTS ⭐

the arguments are as follows, bestie — one bullet per flag, we're not skipping a single one:

  • -v — shows you the Kea version. quick lil vibe check 📋
  • -V — shows you the extended Kea version. the version, but make it thorough 💅
  • -W — shows you the configuration report. receipts! 🧾
  • -d — sets the logging level to debug with extra verbosity. and ngl, this one is primarily for development purposes, in stand-alone mode. so like, devs only, don't be weird with it 🙈
  • -c config-file — specifies the file with the configuration for the Control Agent server. plot twist: it may also contain configuration entries for other Kea services. multitasking icon 👑
  • -t config-file — checks the syntax of the configuration file and reports the first error, if any. but heads up bestie: not all parameters are completely checked. specifically, service and client sockets are not opened, and hook libraries are not loaded. so like, it's a vibe check, not a full physical 🩺
⚠️ lowkey important: -t will not catch everything. don't treat it like a guarantee, okay? it checks syntax, not the whole world.

📚 DOCUMENTATION 📚

Kea comes with an extensive Kea Administrator Reference Manual that covers literally all aspects of running the Kea software — compilation, installation, configuration, configuration examples, and much more. it ate, honestly.

Kea also features a Kea Messages Manual, which lists all possible messages Kea can print with a brief description for each of them. every single one. so when Kea yells at you, you can look up what it's yelling about 😭

both documents are available in various formats (.txt, .html, .pdf) with the Kea distribution. the Kea documentation is available at https://kea.readthedocs.io 🫶

Kea source code is documented in the Kea Developer's Guide, available at https://reports.kea.isc.org/dev_guide/ 🧚

and the Kea project website is available at https://kea.isc.org 🌈

💌 MAILING LISTS AND SUPPORT 💌

there are two public mailing lists available for the Kea project:

  • kea-users (kea-users at lists.isc.org) — intended for Kea users. that's you, bestie 🫶
  • kea-dev (kea-dev at lists.isc.org) — intended for Kea developers, prospective contributors, and other advanced users. iykyk 🔥

both lists are available at https://lists.isc.org. the community provides best-effort support on both of those lists. best-effort, so like, be nice and be patient, okay? 💖

ISC provides professional support for Kea services. see https://www.isc.org/kea/ for details. if you need the real ones on speed dial 📞

🕰️ HISTORY 🕰️

the kea-ctrl-agent was first coded in December 2016 by Marcin Siodelski. a legend, honestly. we love an origin story 🎀

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

go read these next, bestie, they're all part of the lore:

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Internet Systems Consortium — the whole squad 🫶

2019-2025, Internet Systems Consortium

okay that's the whole page, you're officially fluent, no cap 💅✨ this was Kea version 3.0.4, dated Oct 05, 2026 — go forth and control those agents, bestie, you've got this 🦋🌸💖

📦 where this page comes from