Chef - A Configuration Management Tool

So, In the previous, we have just learned about the basic concepts of chef and from now this blog I will tell you the basic commands that we have to use in chef

How to install a chef workstation:-

-> First of all create one Linux machine in AWS.

-> Now use putty and access the machine login as ec2-user

-> Now go to Google and search www.chef.io -> go to download -> chef-worskstation.

-> Enter name, email, company -> It automatically starts downloading -> go to Downloads -> copy the URL.

-> Now go to the Linux machine

wget <url>
ls
yum install <chef-workstation> -y
which chef
chef --version

Inside Cookbooks:-

To generate a cookbook :

chef generate cookbook <name of the cookbook>

To generate a Recipe :

chef generate recipe <name of the recipe>

Now successfully installing let's make up a recipe:-

mkdir cookbooks
ls
cd cookbooks/
chef generate cookbook test-cookbook
yum install tree -y
tree
cd testbook/
chef generate recipe test-recipe
tree
cd..
vi test-cookbook/recipes/test-recipe.rb

This .rb in the test-recipe.rb represents the ruby language.

This content we have to write in the vi editor mode.

File '/myfile' do

content 'Welcome to Harshit Sahu'

action :create

end

After learning the basic commands, Let's see the most commonly used commands in Chef, and how they can be used to manage your infrastructure more effectively.

Chef Commands:

1. knife

The knife is the command-line tool used for interacting with the Chef server. It can be used to create and manage cookbooks, roles, environments, and data bags. With the help of knife, you can also manage nodes and run chef-client on them.

Some of the common knife commands are:

• knife cookbook create: This command is used to create a new cookbook.

• knife cookbook upload: This command is used to upload a cookbook to the Chef server.

• knife node list: This command is used to list all the nodes in the Chef server.

1. chef-client

Chef-client is a command that runs on the nodes and ensures that the desired state of the system is maintained. It does this by executing the recipes defined in the cookbooks. The chef-client command can be run manually or can be scheduled to run at a specific interval.

Some of the common chef-client commands are:

• chef-client: This command is used to run the chef-client on a node.

• chef-client -o recipe[recipe_name]: This command is used to run a specific recipe on a node.

• chef-client -j json_file: This command is used to pass a JSON file as input to the chef-client.

1. kitchen

Kitchen is a command that is used for testing cookbooks in a local environment. It can be used to test the recipes on a virtual machine or a container before uploading them to the Chef server.

Some of the common kitchen commands are:

• kitchen converge: This command is used to converge the cookbook on a virtual machine or a container.

• kitchen list: This command is used to list all the instances that are managed by the kitchen.

• kitchen destroy: This command is used to destroy the instances that are created by the kitchen.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have seen some of the most commonly used commands in Chef. These commands enable us to manage our infrastructure more effectively and efficiently. While there are many more commands available in Chef, the ones we have covered are the most commonly used. Understanding these commands and their usage can help you in automating your infrastructure and reduce the time and effort required for managing it.

Now we have covered up, a lot of basic commands, now with the #blog3 we will learn the use cases of these commands and the more commands like resources,attributes,runlist and many more.