1. Learn the Chef basics - Ubuntu

Objectives:

have a basic understanding of what happens when Chef runs.
be able to write Chef code that defines a basic policy.
be able to apply that policy to a server.

a. Get set up

Launch an Ubuntu virtual machine hosted by the chef.
use vim for text editor

b. Configure a resource

Chef component	Description
resource	describes some piece of infrastructure, such as a file, a template, or a package.
recipe	a file that groups related resources, such as everything needed to configure a web server, database server, or a load balancer.
cookbook	provides structure to your recipes and enables, such as our web server’s home page. In essence, a cookbook helps you stay organized.
knife	enables you to interact with the Chef server
node	all the computer resources infrastructure managed by Chef

file chef docs
directory chef docs

chef-repo save all the resources files

chef-apply filename.rb  #run the rb file

hello.rb is a recipe, motd file is the resource. Resource also can be package, service.

# Example for hello.rb
file ‘motd’ do
    action :create  # default action, if there isn’t explicit, it will called.
    content ‘hello Tao’
end

The functionalities of recipe:

install and configure software components.
manage files.
deploy applications.
execute other recipes.

c. Configure a package and service

Install the Apache package

The order in the recipe is very important. But the orders of the attributes of the file is doesn’t matter.

# webserver.rb configure the apache server
execute ‘apt-get-update’ do
  command ‘apt-get update’
end
package ‘apache2’
service ‘apache2’ do
  supports :status => true
  action [:enable, :start]
end
file ‘/var/www/html/index.html’ do
  content ‘<html>
    <body>
        <h1>hello Tao</h1>
          </body>
          </html>’
          end</h>
    </body>
  </html>
end

Verification

curl localhost      # will see hell Tao

d. Make your recipe more manageable

mkdir cookbooks, use templates to handle html. chef-client to run the cookbooks with the recipe list.

2. Learn to manage Ubuntu Node

objectives:

be able to write Chef code to define a policy from your workstation.
be able to apply that policy to a node.
understand how to access cookbooks written by the Chef community.

a. Get Set up

configure the chef locally

b. Set up your Chef server

Download cookbook from the chef supermarkets

knife cookbook site download learn\_chef\_apache2
knife cookbook upload learn\_chef\_apache2  #upload the cookbook

c. Bootstrap your node

A very long command, don’t forget to apt-get update.

knife node list
knife node show node-name

d. Update your node’s configuration

You ran knife bootstrap to associate your node with the Chef server and do an initial check-in. Bootstrapping is a one-time process.
The knife ssh command enables you to update your node’s configuration when your cookbook changes.