John Siu Blog

This serve as a starting point for installing Chef server on local machines.

Reference

• Chef Doc : Install Standalone
• Chef Doc : chef-server-ctl

Objectives

We will focus on:

• Install Chef server on Ubuntu.
• Install Chef client / development kit.
• Create a user, a organization and setup config file for knife (Chef client).

Version used:

• Server Box
  • Ubuntu Server: 16.04 LTS
  • Hostname: u64s07.local
• Client Box
  • Ubuntu Server: 16.04 LTS
  • Hostname: u64s08.local
• Chef Server: 12.17.33
• Chef Client: 14.5.33
• Chef Development Kit: 3.3.23

Hostname:

• Server box: u64s07.local
• Client box: u64s08.local

Download Chef packages

Download Chef packages from chef.io or use following links. Choose packages base on your OS version.

You will need:

• Chef Server
• Chef Client
• Chef Development Kit (ChefDK / DK) (Optional)

Install Chef Server on Server Box

Install package:

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sudo dpkg -i chef-server-core_12.17.33-1_amd64.deb

Initialize:

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sudo chef-server-ctl reconfigure

Check status:

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sudo chef-server-ctl status

Output:

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run: bookshelf: (pid 25591) 90s; run: log: (pid 25651) 90s
run: nginx: (pid 25417) 94s; run: log: (pid 25974) 86s
run: oc_bifrost: (pid 25309) 96s; run: log: (pid 25347) 95s
run: oc_id: (pid 25401) 95s; run: log: (pid 25410) 94s
run: opscode-erchef: (pid 25827) 87s; run: log: (pid 25805) 89s
run: opscode-expander: (pid 25486) 91s; run: log: (pid 25587) 90s
run: opscode-solr4: (pid 25443) 92s; run: log: (pid 25456) 92s
run: postgresql: (pid 25274) 96s; run: log: (pid 25290) 96s
run: rabbitmq: (pid 26213) 80s; run: log: (pid 26003) 85s
run: redis_lb: (pid 19380) 199s; run: log: (pid 25967) 86s

Reboot and Chef server should auto start.

Install Chef Client/DK on Client Box

We have 2 choices: Chef Client package or Chef Development Kit(DK).

DK includes all client commands with extra as shown in following table.

Install client:

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sudo dpkg -i chef_14.5.33-1_amd64.deb

Install DK:

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sudo dpkg -i chefdk_3.3.23-1_amd64.deb

Testing:

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knife node list

Output:

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WARNING: No knife configuration file found. See https://docs.chef.io/config_rb_knife.html for details.
WARN: Failed to read the private key /etc/chef/client.pem: #<Errno::ENOENT: No such file or directory @ rb_sysopen - /etc/chef/client.pem>
ERROR: Your private key could not be loaded from /etc/chef/client.pem
Check your configuration file and ensure that your private key is readable

This is normal as we don’t have a user yet.

Setup Admin User

1. Server Box

   Create organization

   Syntax:

   1	sudo chef-server-ctl org-create ORG_SHORT_NAME ORG_FULL_NAME --filename ORG-validator.pem

   Example:

   1	sudo chef-server-ctl org-create johnsiu-com JohnSiu.com --filename johnsiu-com-validator.pem

   Generate USER-PEM file used by knife.

   Syntax:

   1	sudo chef-server-ctl user-create USERNAME FIRST_NAME [MIDDLE_NAME] LAST_NAME EMAIL PASSWORD --filename USERNAME.pem

   Example:

   1	sudo chef-server-ctl user-create johnsiu John Siu me@example.com somepassword --filename johnsiu.pem

   Associate user with organization

   Syntax:

   1	sudo chef-server-ctl org-user-add OPTIONS ORG_SHORT_NAME USERNAME

   Example:

   1	sudo chef-server-ctl org-user-add johnsiu-com johnsiu

   Copy / move the USERNAME.pem file to Client Box.

2. Client Box

   Create ~/.chef directory

   1	mkdir ~/.chef

   Move PEM file in to .chef

   1	mv johnsiu.pem ~/.chef/

   Create knife configuration file. Following is the input and output of my setup. You should replace the hostname(u64s07.local) in the URL with your own.

   Execute:

   1	knife configure

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   WARNING: No knife configuration file found. See https://docs.chef.io/config_rb_knife.html for details. Please enter the chef server URL: [https://u64s08.local/organizations/myorg] https://u64s07.local/organizations/johnsiu-com Please enter an existing username or clientname for the API: [js] johnsiu ***** You must place your client key in: /home/js/.chef/johnsiu.pem Before running commands with Knife ***** Knife configuration file written to /home/js/.chef/credentials

   Test and expected error:

   1	knife node list

   Output: Instead of an empty line (as we have not add any node yet), we will get following error:

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   ERROR: SSL Validation failure connecting to host: u64s07.local - SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=error: certificate verify failed (self signed certificate) ERROR: Could not establish a secure connection to the server. Use `knife ssl check` to troubleshoot your SSL configuration. If your Chef Server uses a self-signed certificate, you can use `knife ssl fetch` to make knife trust the server's certificates. Original Exception: OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError: SSL Error connecting to https://u64s07.local/organizations/johnsiu-com/nodes - SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=error: certificate verify failed (self signed certificate)

   Follow the instruction to make knife accept Chef server self-signed certificate:

   1	knife ssl fetch

   Test again and there should be no error.

Chef Server Manager (Web GUI)

After Chef server installed, open https://your-server-box-hostname will give you the following instruction:

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sudo chef-server-ctl install chef-manage
sudo chef-server-ctl reconfigure
sudo chef-manage-ctl reconfigure

Chef Server Manager (Web GUI) and many additional features (mostly web based also) are called premium features. They are free to use up to 25 nodes.