chef.md

This section introduces methods to configure a virtual machine instance using the Chef Configuration Management System.

It is assumed that the chef-client is installed in the virtual machine image/instance already.

Chef

The ↴ chef-instance program uploads cookbook, roles, and data-bags to the virtual machine instance before executing the chef-client:

• The path to Chef cookbooks is defined by the environment variable CHEF_COOKBOOKS.
• The programs ssh-instance and rsync-instance are used internally.

The following example uses the Chef base cookbook.

>>> git clone https://github.com/vpenso/chef-base ~/chef/cookbooks/base
# define the search paths for Chef cookbooks
>>> export CHEF_COOKBOOKS=~/chef/cookbooks:~/chef/site-cookbooks
# change to the directory of a virtual machine instance
>>> vm cd lxdev01
# configure the Chef cookbooks and roles to use 
>>> chef-instance cookbook base
>>> chef-instance role ~/projects/chef/cookbooks/base/test/roles/apt.rb
# execute chef-solo in the virtual machine instance
>>> chef-instance solo -r "role[apt]"

All configurations required by Chef are available under the directory path '/var/tmp/chef' of the virtual machine instance:

• The cookbooks/, roles/, and data-bags/ sub-directories contain the required files (or links to them).
• The files chef_config.rb, and chef_attributes.json include the configuration for chef-client.

├── chef_attributes.json
├── chef_config.rb
├── cookbooks
│   └── base -> ~/projects/chef/cookbooks/base
├── data-bags
├── disk.img
├── keys
│   ├── id_rsa
│   └── id_rsa.pub
├── libvirt_instance.xml
├── roles
│   └── apt.rb -> ~/projects/chef/cookbooks/base/test/roles/apt.rb
├── ssh_config
└── sync.log

The chef-instance command executes chef-solo in the virtual machine instance the following way:

>>> rsync-instance "cookbooks roles data-bags chef_*" :/var/tmp/chef 2>&1 1>>sync.log
>>> ssh-instance -s "chef-solo -c /var/tmp/chef/chef_config.rb -j /var/tmp/chef/chef_attributes.json"