This is a how to article on setting up Chef a configuration management system and its components (Server, Workstation, and Node) on CentOS 6.3 64-bit. Chef is a systems and cloud infrastructure automation framework that makes it easy to deploy servers and applications to any physical, virtual, or cloud location, no matter the size of the infrastructure.
The chef-client relies on abstract definitions (known as cookbooks and recipes) that are written in Ruby and are managed like source code. Each definition describes how a specific part of your infrastructure should be built and managed. The chef-client then applies those definitions to servers and applications, as specified, resulting in a fully automated infrastructure. When a new node is brought online, the only thing the chef-client needs to know is which cookbooks and recipes to apply.
Setup a Chef Server
The server acts as a hub for configuration data. The server stores cookbooks, the policies that are applied to nodes, and metadata that describes each registered node that is being managed by the chef-client. Nodes use the chef-client to ask the server for configuration details, such as recipes, templates, and file distributions. The chef-client then does as much of the configuration work as possible on the nodes themselves (and not on the server). This scalable approach distributes the configuration effort throughout the organization.
Make sure you have a fully qualified domain name as your hostname
bash-shell# vim /etc/sysconfig/network NETWORKING=yes HOSTNAME=your-fqdn-hostname.com bash-shell# hostname your-fqdn-hostname.com |
Install and configure chef server
bash-shell# wget https://opscode-omnibus-packages.s3.amazonaws.com/el/6/x86_64/chef-server-11.0.10-1.el6.x86_64.rpm bash-shell# yum install -y chef-server-11.0.10-1.el6.x86_64.rpm bash-shell# chef-server-ctl reconfigure |
Verify your install
bash-shell# chef-server-ctl test |
Go into your browser to your Chef server https://your-fqdn-hostname.com
The default userName/password is admin/p@ssw0rd1
Make sure you change the default password after login.
Setup a Chef Workstation
The Chef workstation is where you will be doing your work prior to uploading to the Chef Server which will be used by the nodes.
Install some dependencies
bash-shell# yum install -y git |
Install Chef
bash-shell# curl -L https://www.opscode.com/chef/install.sh | bash |
Verify Chef install
bash-shell# chef-client -v |
Clone Chef repo
bash-shell# cd ~ bash-shell# git clone git://github.com/opscode/chef-repo.git |
Configure Chef
bash-shell# cd chef-repo/ bash-shell# mkdir -p ~/chef-repo/.chef bash-shell# echo '.chef' >> .gitignore bash-shell# echo 'export PATH="/opt/chef/embedded/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile && source ~/.bash_profile bash-shell# cd ~/chef-repo/.chef |
Copy your chef-validator.pem and admin.pem Chef server /etc/chef-server to ~/chef-repo/.chef/
bash-shell# chmod 600 ~/chef-repo/.chef/*.pem |
Create a knife.rb configuration file
bash-shell# knife configure --initial WARNING: No knife configuration file found Where should I put the config file? ~/chef-repo/.chef/knife.rb Please enter the chef server URL: https://us-east-chef-server-01.givit.com:443 Please enter a name for the new user: knife Please enter the existing admin name: [admin] Please enter the location of the existing admin's private key: ~/chef-repo/.chef/admin.pem Please enter the validation clientname: [chef-validator] Please enter the location of the validation key: ~/chef-repo/.chef/chef-validator.pem Please enter the path to a chef repository (or leave blank): Creating initial API user... Please enter a password for the new user: Created user[knife] Configuration file written to ~/chef-repo/.chef/knife.rb |
Verify your workstation install
bash-shell# knife client list chef-validator chef-webui bash-shell# knife user list admin knife |
Setup a Chef Node
A node is any physical, virtual, or cloud machine that is configured to be maintained by a chef-client.
Make sure you have a fully qualified domain name as your hostname
bash-shell# vim /etc/sysconfig/network NETWORKING=yes HOSTNAME=your-fqdn-hostname.com bash-shell# hostname your-fqdn-hostname.com |
Install Chef
bash-shell# curl -L https://www.opscode.com/chef/install.sh | bash bash-shell# mkdir /etc/chef bash-shell# cd /etc/chef/ |
Copy your chef-validator.pem from the Chef server /etc/chef-server to /etc/chef/
bash-shell# chmod 600 /etc/chef/*.pem |
Register your Chef node
chef-client -S https://your-fqdn-hostname-of-chef-server.com -K /etc/chef/chef-validator.pem |
Setup your Chef client.rb file
bash-shell# vim client.rb log_level :info log_location STDOUT chef_server_url 'https://your-fqdn-hostname-of-chef-server.com' |
Verify your Chef node install
bash-shell# chef-client |
Your next step is to find and implement a recipe. Please read the next article in the series “How to install and configure Chef Cookbook: users to manage users” .
Hope this helps you get your Chef components setup for infrastructure as code fun.