Chef – Knife Setup

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Knife is Chef’s command-line tool to interact with the Chef server. One uses it for uploading cookbooks and managing other aspects of Chef. It provides an interface between the chefDK (Repo) on the local machine and the Chef server. It helps in managing −

Chef nodes
Cookbook
Recipe
Environments
Cloud Resources
Cloud Provisioning
Installation on Chef client on Chef nodes

Knife provides a set of commands to manage Chef infrastructure.

Bootstrap Commands

knife bootstrap [SSH_USER@]FQDN (options)

Client Commands

knife client bulk delete REGEX (options)
knife client create CLIENTNAME (options)
knife client delete CLIENT (options)
knife client edit CLIENT (options)
Usage: C:/opscode/chef/bin/knife (options)
knife client key delete CLIENT KEYNAME (options)
knife client key edit CLIENT KEYNAME (options)
knife client key list CLIENT (options)
knife client key show CLIENT KEYNAME (options)
knife client list (options)
knife client reregister CLIENT (options)
knife client show CLIENT (options)

Configure Commands

knife configure (options)
knife configure client DIRECTORY

Cookbook Commands

knife cookbook bulk delete REGEX (options)
knife cookbook create COOKBOOK (options)
knife cookbook delete COOKBOOK VERSION (options)
knife cookbook download COOKBOOK [VERSION] (options)
knife cookbook list (options)
knife cookbook metadata COOKBOOK (options)
knife cookbook metadata from FILE (options)
knife cookbook show COOKBOOK [VERSION] [PART] [FILENAME] (options)
knife cookbook test [COOKBOOKS…] (options)
knife cookbook upload [COOKBOOKS…] (options)

Cookbook Site Commands

knife cookbook site download COOKBOOK [VERSION] (options)
knife cookbook site install COOKBOOK [VERSION] (options)
knife cookbook site list (options)
knife cookbook site search QUERY (options)
knife cookbook site share COOKBOOK [CATEGORY] (options)
knife cookbook site show COOKBOOK [VERSION] (options)
knife cookbook site unshare COOKBOOK

Data Bag Commands

knife data bag create BAG [ITEM] (options)
knife data bag delete BAG [ITEM] (options)
knife data bag edit BAG ITEM (options)
knife data bag from file BAG FILE|FOLDER [FILE|FOLDER..] (options)
knife data bag list (options)
knife data bag show BAG [ITEM] (options)

Environment Commands

knife environment compare [ENVIRONMENT..] (options)
knife environment create ENVIRONMENT (options)
knife environment delete ENVIRONMENT (options)
knife environment edit ENVIRONMENT (options)
knife environment from file FILE [FILE..] (options)
knife environment list (options)
knife environment show ENVIRONMENT (options)

Exec Commands

knife exec [SCRIPT] (options)

Help Commands

knife help [list|TOPIC]

Index Commands

knife index rebuild (options)

Node Commands

knife node bulk delete REGEX (options)
knife node create NODE (options)
knife node delete NODE (options)
knife node edit NODE (options)
knife node environment set NODE ENVIRONMENT
knife node from file FILE (options)
knife node list (options)
knife node run_list add [NODE] [ENTRY[,ENTRY]] (options)
knife node run_list remove [NODE] [ENTRY[,ENTRY]] (options)
knife node run_list set NODE ENTRIES (options)
knife node show NODE (options)

OSC Commands

knife osc_user create USER (options)
knife osc_user delete USER (options)
knife osc_user edit USER (options)
knife osc_user list (options)
knife osc_user reregister USER (options)
knife osc_user show USER (options)

Path-Based Commands

knife delete [PATTERN1 … PATTERNn]
knife deps PATTERN1 [PATTERNn]
knife diff PATTERNS
knife download PATTERNS
knife edit [PATTERN1 … PATTERNn]
knife list [-dfR1p] [PATTERN1 … PATTERNn]
knife show [PATTERN1 … PATTERNn]
knife upload PATTERNS
knife xargs [COMMAND]

Raw Commands

knife raw REQUEST_PATH

Recipe Commands

knife recipe list [PATTERN]

Role Commands

knife role bulk delete REGEX (options)
knife role create ROLE (options)
knife role delete ROLE (options)
knife role edit ROLE (options)
knife role env_run_list add [ROLE] [ENVIRONMENT] [ENTRY[,ENTRY]] (options)
knife role env_run_list clear [ROLE] [ENVIRONMENT]
knife role env_run_list remove [ROLE] [ENVIRONMENT] [ENTRIES]
knife role env_run_list replace [ROLE] [ENVIRONMENT] [OLD_ENTRY] [NEW_ENTRY]
knife role env_run_list set [ROLE] [ENVIRONMENT] [ENTRIES]
knife role from file FILE [FILE..] (options)
knife role list (options)
knife role run_list add [ROLE] [ENTRY[,ENTRY]] (options)
knife role run_list clear [ROLE]
knife role run_list remove [ROLE] [ENTRY]
knife role run_list replace [ROLE] [OLD_ENTRY] [NEW_ENTRY]
knife role run_list set [ROLE] [ENTRIES]
knife role show ROLE (options)

Serve Commands

knife serve (options)

SSH Commands

knife ssh QUERY COMMAND (options)

SSL Commands

knife ssl check [URL] (options)
knife ssl fetch [URL] (options)

Status Commands

knife status QUERY (options)

Tag Commands

knife tag create NODE TAG …
knife tag delete NODE TAG …
knife tag list NODE

User Commands

knife user create USERNAME DISPLAY_NAME FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME EMAIL PASSWORD (options)
knife user delete USER (options)
knife user edit USER (options)
knife user key create USER (options)
knife user key delete USER KEYNAME (options)
knife user key edit USER KEYNAME (options)
knife user key list USER (options)
knife user key show USER KEYNAME (options)
knife user list (options)
knife user reregister USER (options)
knife user show USER (options)

Knife Setup

In order to set up knife, one needs to move to .chef directory and create a knife.rb inside the chef repo, which tells knife about the configuration details. This will have a couple up details.

current_dir = File.dirname(__FILE__) 
log_level                :info 
log_location             STDOUT 
node_name                ''node_name'' 
client_key               "#{current_dir}/USER.pem" 
validation_client_name   ''ORG_NAME-validator'' 
validation_key           "#{current_dir}/ORGANIZATION-validator.pem" 
chef_server_url          ''https://api.chef.io/organizations/ORG_NAME'' 
cache_type               ''BasicFile'' 
cache_options( :path =>  "#{ENV[''HOME'']}/.chef/checksums" ) 
cookbook_path            ["#{current_dir}/../cookbooks"]

In the above code, we are using the hosted Chef server which uses the following two keys.

validation_client_name   ''ORG_NAME-validator'' 
validation_key           "#{current_dir}/ORGANIZATION-validator.pem"

Here, knife.rb tells knife which organization to use and where to find the private key. It tells knife where to find the users’ private key.

client_key               "#{current_dir}/USER.pem"

The following line of code tells knife we are using the hosted server.

chef_server_url        ''https://api.chef.io/organizations/ORG_NAME''

Using the knife.rb file, the validator knife can now connect to your organization’s hosted Opscode.

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