setting up a basic chef environment; chef server, chef workstation, nodes

Info:

setup 3 vm with below info, put these names under the hosts file on each vm.

Server Name	Function	Local user
chef-server	Chef server	anthony
chef-ws	Chef workstation	anthony
chef-client	Chef node	anthony

Setting up chef-server - standalone

Download the required installer file from chef website

$ dpkg -i chef-server-core_12.8.0-1_amd64.deb             $ chef-server-ctl reconfigure $ cd /etc/chef $ chef-server-ctl user-create anthony anthony chin anthony.chin@bluecoat.com 'P@ssw0rd' --filename anthony.pem $ chef-server-ctl org-create abctest 'ABC Test Co.' --association_user anthony --filename abctest-validator.pem

Setting up chef-workstation

In Ubuntu 16.04 workstation, download the chef-dk from chef website

$ dpkg -i chefdk_0.17.17-1_amd64.deb $ mkdir -p ~/learn-chef/.chef $ vi knife.rb # See http://docs.chef.io/config_rb_knife.html for more information on knife configuration options current_dir = File.dirname(__FILE__) log_level                :info log_location             STDOUT node_name                "anthony" client_key               "#{current_dir}/anthony.pem" chef_server_url          "https://chef-server/organizations/abctest" cookbook_path            ["#{current_dir}/../cookbooks"] $ scp anthony@chef-server:/etc/chef/anthony.pem ./ $ knife ssl fetch  ß this will get the server certificate from chef-server when the server cert is self-sign. $ knife ssl check $ knife node list   ß if you are able to run this without any error, thus you have successfully authenticated with the chef-server

Setting up a cookbook

Download a test cookbook from https://supermarket.chef.io/cookbooks/learn_chef_apache2

Extract and save the files under ~/learn-chef/cookbooks/

$ cd ~/learn-chef/cookbooks $ knife cookbook list $ knife cookbook upload learn_chef_apache2 $ knife cookbook list

Setting up chef-client (bootstrap from chef-workstation)

From chef-workstation

$ knife node list $ knife bootstrap chef-client --ssh-user anthony --ssh-password 'P@ssw0rd' --sudo --use-sudo-password --node-name chef-client --run-list 'recipe[learn_chef_apache2]' $ knife node list     ß you will have a “chef-client” node being added with a recipe associated $ knife node show chef-client

By now, you have installed a chef server, chef workstation, and bootstrapped a node with a recipe associated with it.

Try load the http://chef-client from web browser and you shall get a “hello word” page.