IMPORTANT CHANGES

Please note the following important changes to the Chef cookbook(s) that coincide with the 0.10 release of Chef.

Cookbook Renaming

The cookbook formerly known as 'chef' has been split into two cookbooks:

chef-client
chef-server

So users have a clearer distinction about where to find recipes for managing Chef itself. The chef cookbook will still be available for backwards compatibility reasons.

Attributes

The attributes are namespaced between using chef_client and chef_server. Several attributes have been renamed completely. See the attributes section below.

Paths

Path default values are selected by Platform according to the various distributions "best practice" preference. For example, major Linux distributions use the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, which the attributes attempt to mimic. See the various platform specific path attributes in the attributes section.

Init Style

The default init style is chosen based on the platform. See the usage section on choosing an init style below.

Recipes

The recipes in the chef cookbook that are now in chef-server:

chef::bootstrap_server -> chef-server::rubygems-install
chef::server -> chef-server::default
chef::server_proxy -> chef-server::apache-proxy

See the recipes section below.

DESCRIPTION

This cookbook is used to configure a system to be a Chef Server. It has a few recipes, please read the recipes section below for information on what each one is used for.

REQUIREMENTS

Chef 0.10.0 or later is required. For earlier versions of Chef, see the chef cookbook, version 0.99.0.

Platform

The Chef Server will work on a variety of platforms, however a Ubuntu or Debian is recommended when performing a RubyGems installation. Other platforms may work but are not as well tested.

The chef-server::default recipe will work on any platform running the Chef Server, as it only compacts the CouchDB / views.

See:

http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Installing+Chef+Server+using+Chef+Solo

Note that CentOS 5 is known to not work due to issues with Ruby.

Cookbooks

The chef-server cookbook requires the following cookbooks from Opscode. Some are required for various init style options (bluepill, runit, daemontools):

apt
apache2
runit
couchdb
chef-client
chef-server
openssl
gecode
java
xml
zlib
erlang
bluepill
daemontools
ucspi-tcp
build-essential

ATTRIBUTES

The attributes used by this cookbook are under the chef_server namespace.

When using the rubygems-install recipe, set the desired attributes using a JSON file. See RUBYGEMS_INSTALLATION for more information.

Platform Specific Attributes

The following attributes are chosen based on the platform and set accordingly. See the attributes/default.rb for default values by platform. The following platforms are supported:

arch
debian
ubuntu
redhat
centos
fedora
openbsd
freebsd
mac_os_x

init_style

This attribute is used by the chef-server::rubygems-install recipe. This specifies the type of init system used on the Chef Server. The attributes file will choose an init style based on the platform, but this can be overriden by specifying an alternate value.

Automatically determined values:

arch - ArchLinux, and uses the appropriate rc.d and conf.d scripts out of the chef gem.
init - Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, CentOS and Fedora. Uses the appropriate /etc/default, /etc/sysconfig and /etc/init.d files out of the chef gem.
bsd - OpenBSD, FreeBSD and Mac OS X, does not actually set up any system startup daemon, but provides a log message for the administrator of further hints.

The following alternate init styles are available as well.

runit - sets up the daemons and logging in /etc/sv/SERVICE with Opscode's runit cookbook.
daemontools - sets up the daemons and logging in /etc/sv/SERVICE with Opscode's daemontools cookbook.
bluepill - sets up the daemons in /etc/bluepill/SERVICE with Opscode's bluepill cookbook.

This cookbook does not yet support Upstart for Ubuntu/Debian, but that is planned for a future release, and will be specified via this attribute.

path

Used for the chef user's home directory.

run_path

Location for PID files on systems using init scripts.

If init_style is init, this is used, and should match what the init script itself uses for the PID files.

cache_path

Location where the client will cache cookbooks and other data. Corresponds to Chef::Config[:file_cache_path] configuration value.

backup_path

Location where backups of files replaced by Chef (template, cookbook_file, etc), corresponds to the Chef::Config[:file_backup_path] location.

Non-platform Specific Attributes

umask

Sets the umask for files created by the server process via Chef::Config[:umask] in /etc/chef/server.rb

url

Full URI for the Chef Server. Used by Chef::Config[:chef_server_url] configuration setting. Default is http://localhost:4000. If running chef-solr on a separate machine, configure it to the appropriate network accessible URL (e.g., http://chef.example.com:4000).

log_dir

Location where logs should be stored when initializing services via init scripts. Not used if init style is runit, daemontools or bluepill.

api_port

Port for the Server API service to listen on. Default 4000.

webui_port

Port for the Server WebUI service to listen on. Default 4040.

webui_enabled

As of version 0.8.x+, the WebUI part of the Chef Server is optional, and disabled by default. To enable it, set this to true.

solr_heap_size

Sets the amount of memory for the SOLR heap, default 256M.

validation_client_name

Set the name of the special client used to validate new clients. Default chef-validator.

expander_nodes

Number of nodes to start up for the chef-expander (replacement for chef-solr-indexer in 0.10). Default is 1.

Server Proxy Attributes

The following attributes are used by the apache-proxy.rb recipe, and are stored in the apache-proxy.rb attributes file. They are under the node['chef_server'] attribute space.

doc_root

DocumentRoot for the WebUI. Also gets set in the vhost for the API, but it is not used since the vhost merely proxies to the server on port 4000.

ssl_req

This attribute can be used to set up a self-signed SSL certificate automatically using OpenSSL. Fields:

C: country (two letter code)
ST: state/province
L: locality or city
O: organization
OU: organizational unit
CN: canonical name, usually the fully qualified domain name of the server (FQDN)
emailAddress: contact email address

This attribute should be a single string, fields separated by /.

css_expire_hours

Sets expiration time for CSS in the WebUI.

js_expire_hours

Sets expiration time for JavaScript in the WebUI.

api_server_name

VirtualHost server name for the API.

api_port

Port for the API's HTTPS proxy.

api_aliases

VirtualHost server aliases for the API.

webui_server_name

VirtualHost server name for the webui.

webui_port

Port for the WebUI HTTPS proxy.

webui_aliases

VirtualHost server alaises for the webui.

RECIPES AND USAGE

This section describes the recipes in the cookbook and how to use them in your environment. This is focused on the Chef Server itself. To set up a Chef Server that will also be a Chef Client to itself, see the chef-client cookbook.

default

Since the Chef Server itself typically runs the CouchDB service for the data store, the recipe will do a compaction on the Chef database and all the views associated with the Chef Server. These compactions only occur if the database/view size is more than 100Mb. It will use the configured CouchDB URL, which is http://localhost:5984 by default. The actual value used for the CouchDB server is from the Chef::Config[:couchdb_url], so this can be dynamically changed in the /etc/chef/server.rb config file.

apache-proxy

This recipe sets up an Apache2 VirtualHost to proxy HTTPS for the Chef Server API and WebUI.

The API will be proxied on port 443. If the WebUI is enabled, it will be proxied on port 444. The recipe dynamically creates the OpenSSL certificate based on the node['chef_server']['ssl_req'] attribute. It uses additional configuration for Apache to improve performance of the webui. The virtual host template is chef_server.conf.erb. The DocumentRoot setting is used for the WebUI, but not the API, and is set with the attribute node['chef_server']['doc_root'].

rubygems-install

ONLY FOR RUBYGEMS INSTALLATIONS. Do not use this recipe if you installed Chef from packages for your platform.

Use this recipe to "bootstrap" a system to become a Chef Server. This recipe does the following:

Creates a chef user.
Installs CouchDB from package or source depending on the platform.
Installs Java for the chef-solr search engine.
Installs RabbitMQ with the chef-server::rabbitmq recipe for the chef-expander consumer.
Installs Gecode with the gecode cookbook. On Debian/Ubuntu, Opscode's APT repository will be used. On other platforms, Gecode will be installed from source, which can take a long time.
Installs all the Server-related RubyGems.
Creates the server configuration file /etc/chef/server.rb based on the configuration passed via JSON.
Creates the chef-solr configuration file, /etc/chef/solr.rb.
Sets up the chef-server, chef-solr, chef-expander services depending on the init_style attribute (see above).

Minimal JSON to use for the server configuration:

{
  "chef_server": {
    "url": "http://localhost.localdomain:4000",
  },
  "run_list": "recipe[chef-server::rubygems-install]"
}

Note that the chef-server-webui is optional and can be enabled if desired.

{
  "chef_server": {
    "url": "http://localhost.localdomain:4000",
    "webui_enabled": true
  },
  "run_list": "recipe[chef-server::rubygems-install]"
}

For more information see Bootstrap Chef RubyGems Installation on the Chef Wiki and the attributes section above.

TEMPLATES

chef_server.conf.erb

VirtualHost file used by Apache2 in the chef-server::apache-proxy recipe.

server.rb.erb

Configuration for the server and server components used in the chef-server::rubygems-install recipe.

solr.rb.erb

Configuration for chef-solr used in the chef-server::rubygems-install recipe.

sv-*run.erb

Runit and daemontools "run" scripts for the services configured when node['chef_server']['init_style'] is "runit" or "daemontools".

*.pill.erb

Bluepill "pill" files for the services configured when node['chef_server']['init_style'] is "bluepill".

LICENSE AND AUTHORS

Author: Joshua Timberman joshua@opscode.com
Author: Joshua Sierles joshua@37signals.com

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and

IMPORTANT CHANGES

Cookbook Renaming

Attributes

Paths

Init Style

Recipes

DESCRIPTION

REQUIREMENTS

Platform

Cookbooks

ATTRIBUTES

Platform Specific Attributes

init_style

path

run_path

cache_path

backup_path

Non-platform Specific Attributes

umask

url

log_dir

api_port

webui_port

webui_enabled

solr_heap_size

validation_client_name

expander_nodes

Server Proxy Attributes

doc_root

ssl_req

css_expire_hours

js_expire_hours

api_server_name

api_port

api_aliases

webui_server_name

webui_port

webui_aliases

RECIPES AND USAGE

default

apache-proxy

rubygems-install

TEMPLATES

chef_server.conf.erb

server.rb.erb

solr.rb.erb

sv-*run.erb

*.pill.erb

LICENSE AND AUTHORS

About

Languages