If Flume is installed via an RPM or Debian package, you can use the following commands to start, stop, and restart the Flume agent via 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