If Flume is installed using an RPM or Debian package, or managed by Cloudera Manager, you can use the following commands to start, stop, and restart the Flume agent using init scripts:

$ sudo service flume-ng-agent <start | stop | restart>

You can also run the agent in the foreground directly by using the flume-ng agent command:

$ /usr/bin/flume-ng agent -c <config-dir> -f <config-file> -n <agent-name>

For example:

$ /usr/bin/flume-ng agent -c /etc/flume-ng/conf -f /etc/flume-ng/conf/flume.conf -n agent