Creating and setting up a chef server

chef_server.init

#cloud-config

output:
  all: ">> /var/log/cloud-init.log"

# the chef server's alias will be "chef", add a /etc/hosts entry for it
bootcmd:
  - echo 127.0.0.1 chef >> /etc/hosts

apt_sources:
  - source: "deb http://apt.opscode.com/ precise-0.10 main"
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debconf_selections: |
  chef-server-webui chef-server-webui/admin_password password chef
  chef-solr chef-solr/amqp_password password chef
  chef chef/chef_server_url string http://chef:4000

runcmd:
  - [ "apt-get", "update" ]
  - [ "apt-get", "-y", "upgrade" ]
  - [ "apt-get", "-y", "install", "chef" ]
  - [ "apt-get", "-y", "install", "chef-server" ]

packages:
  - git-core

chef_setting_up_a_server.md

Resources:

• https://github.com/fnichol/wiki-notes/wiki/Deploying-Chef-Server-On-Amazon-EC2
• http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Installing+Chef+Server+using+Chef+Solo
• http://www.ducea.com/2009/06/01/howto-update-dns-hostnames-automatically-for-your-amazon-ec2-instances/
• http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Installing+Chef+Server+Manually#InstallingChefServerManually-ConfiguretheCommandLineClient

Setup your box

• Add AWS Access Key ID and Secret to environment variables (AWS_ACCESS_ID & AWS_SECRET_KEY)
• Install ec2-api-tools or

  brew install ec2-api-tools

• You should have the cloud-init file in your repo
• You should have knife installed (gem install knife-ec2)

Create a new Chef server

cd ~/projects/your-chef-repo
ec2-run-instances --instance-type m1.small ami-a29943cb --subnet subnet-a6371fcd --availability-zone us-east-1c --user-data-file chef_server.init -g sg-95759bfa -k sppdev > new_chef_instance_output.txt
cat new_chef_instance_output.txt
ec2-create-tags `cat new_chef_instance_output.txt | grep '^INSTANCE' | cut -f2 -s` --tag "Name=Chef-Server"
#ssh into new instance and tail /var/log/cloud-init.log /var/log/chef/server.log
#Wait for the box to finish setting up

#Ensure chef-server and chef-server-webui have started.
ssh ubuntu@your-chef-server
sudo service chef-server status
sudo service chef-server-webui status 

#I had to run webui via 'sudo chef-server-webui' first before I could start the service successfully

Configure knife run the following on the new chef server

mkdir -p ~/.chef
sudo cp /etc/chef/validation.pem /etc/chef/webui.pem ~/.chef
sudo chown -R $USER ~/.chef
knife configure -i
#Where should I put the config file? [~/.chef/knife.rb] 
#Please enter the chef server URL: [http://server_name:4000] http://localhost:4000
#Please enter a clientname for the new client: [ubuntu] dev
#Please enter the existing admin clientname: [chef-webui] 
#Please enter the location of the existing admin client's private key: [/etc/chef/webui.pem] .chef/webui.pem
#Please enter the validation clientname: [chef-validator] 
#Please enter the location of the validation key: [/etc/chef/validation.pem] .chef/validation.pem
#Please enter the path to a chef repository (or leave blank): 
#Creating initial API user...
#Created client[dev]
#Configuration file written to /home/ubuntu/.chef/knife.rb

#Copy the contents of the pem into your chef-repo (.chef/dev-client.pem)
cat .chef/dev.pem 

Test your Chef server and Knife configuration From your local dev machine

cd ~/projects/lpos-chef-repo
knife client list

Update chef server password Go to http://your-chef-server.com:4040/users/admin/update and update the password to something else

Upload our cookbooks to chef server From your local dev machine

knife cookbook upload -a
knife role from file roles/*.json

Notes:

• webui fails to start on occasion

Handy tips on troubleshooting can be found here

Breakdown of ec2-run-instances command ec2-run-instances --instance-type m1.small ami-a29943cb --subnet subnet-a6371fcd --availability-zone us-east-1c --user-data-file chef_server.init -g sg-95759bfa -k sppdev

• --instance-type m1.small ami-a29943cb
• Instance Type and vanilla ubuntu AMI.
• --subnet subnet-a6371fcd --availability-zone us-east-1c
• Only required if your launching within a VPC
• --user-data-file chef_server.init
• The cloud init file used. Baked into ubuntu AMIs
• -g sg-95759bfa The ID of the VPC security group.
• If not launching an instance within a VPC you can reference the group by name
• -k sppdev
• The key to use. sppdev is the name for the access key/secret pair setup in security credentials