Home Cloud & Networking Configuration Management with Chef-Solo

Configuration Management with Chef-Solo

By Naveed ur Rahman
books-svg-icon Book
Subscription FREE
eBook + Subscription €14.99
eBook €15.99
Print + eBook €19.99
READ FOR FREE Free Trial for 7 days. €14.99 p/m after trial. Cancel Anytime! BUY NOW BUY NOW BUY NOW
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 7000+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook + Subscription?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better reading experience
What do you get with video?
Download this video in MP4 format
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Watch whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better learning experience
What do you get with Audiobook?
Download a zip folder consisting of audio files (in MP3 Format) along with supplementary PDF
READ FOR FREE Free Trial for 7 days. €14.99 p/m after trial. Cancel Anytime! BUY NOW BUY NOW BUY NOW
Subscription FREE
eBook + Subscription €14.99
eBook €15.99
Print + eBook €19.99
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 7000+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook + Subscription?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better reading experience
What do you get with video?
Download this video in MP4 format
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Watch whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better learning experience
What do you get with Audiobook?
Download a zip folder consisting of audio files (in MP3 Format) along with supplementary PDF
About this book
Publication date:
June 2014
Publisher
Packt
Pages
116
ISBN
9781783982462

 

Chapter 1. Introduction to Chef and Chef-Solo

Chef is a configuration management system to automate the process of deploying servers to any physical, virtual, or cloud location. Each setup involves the basic structure with one Chef server and different nodes managed by the chef-client. Chef infrastructure is managed by Ruby code and it allows you to test, build, and replicate your infrastructure.

This chapter will guide you through the basics of Chef and how it can help you in building an infrastructure. We will discuss Chef, Chef-Solo, and address some common problems in building an infrastructure and how Chef can help us to solve these problems.

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

  • Chef explanations and concepts

  • Chef-Solo

  • Terminology for Chef

  • Different use cases

  • Concepts

 

Getting started with Chef


Chef is a complete framework to automate infrastructure operations to build servers or applications from scratch or add new configurations to existing systems. Servers are managed by code, written in Ruby and it provides the facility to test and reproduce machines.

Chef basic infrastructure contains at least one server and one node. Each node is maintained and set up by chef-client and is responsible for executing recipes and configuring environments to run applications. It contains the abstract-level configuration of a server or an application.

Tiny code blocks in recipes contain a set of commands that execute on a system sequentially, and gradually configure the whole environment. The complete process is fully automated and without human administration; Chef can set up several nodes.

For instance, if you want 100 servers with Python/Django running Nginx with uWSGI and you want to have the same installations on each node, Chef can make this happen in minutes; it also provides you with the switch to turn your nodes on and off. It can check for revision control system and is responsible for pulling recent updates from the repository. You can easily revert the system to the previous state if something does not happen according to your needs. With Chef, system administrators can spend less time on maintenance and more time on innovation.

Traditional infrastructure is slow and tedious; it involves many steps to build servers and running applications. All your configurations are in one place and you will not worry about the several configurations of different servers. While scaling your application, it is highly recommended to use Chef, as you can easily split your app on to different servers by using roles and nodes. You do not have to install the same application 10 times on one machine or any other, just create a new node in Chef server and in a few minutes, the server will be ready to handle the application. Also, there is no need to maintain the documentation of servers, as the recipes' code is self-explanatory and easy to grasp for a new user.

Chef is developed by Chef Software, Inc. and recently they released Version 11.0. Chef code is completely rewritten in Version 11.0, swapping out Apache CouchDB for PostgreSQL and Ruby for Erlang. The result is massive and now a single Chef server can handle more than 1000 nodes (clients).

Chef is provided in the following three versions:

  • Private Chef: This is an enterprise version that supports multi-tenancy to provide a highly scalable server to handle several nodes. It should be located in the client's premises and managed behind a firewall.

  • Hosted Chef: This is an SAAS service managed by Chef Software, Inc. It is a cloud-based service and highly available (24/7 x 365), with roles and resource-based access controls. It does not require a firewall.

  • Open source Chef: This is a community-driven version with almost identical features, and it should be managed locally and behind the firewall. The latest features initially were released for the commercial version and then gradually released in the open source version. The system administrator will be responsible for applying updates, defining roles, data migrations, and ensuring that the infrastructure scales appropriately.

Chef has been primarily divided into the following three parts:

  • Chef server: Chef server is responsible for handling nodes and providing cookbooks to clients.

  • chef-client: The chef-client actually executes the recipes and configures the system. It also resolves each application dependency. The Chef architecture is based on the Thin server, Thick client model. There is no need for continuous communication with the server, as the client retrieves the cookbooks from the server and processes recipes on the client end. The server distributes data to each node including cookbooks, templates, files, and other items. The server contains the copy of all items. This approach ensures that each node has persistent data and files.

  • Knife: Knife is a tool that provides an interface between local-repo and the server. It is used to retrieve cookbooks, policies, roles, environments, and other items.

 

Understanding Chef-Solo


Chef-Solo is an open source version of chef-client. It executes recipes from the local cookbooks. It is a limited version of chef-client and has much fewer features than it. It does not have the following features:

  • Node data storage: Node data storage is used to keep values consistent across each node in a large infrastructure.

  • Search indexes: Search index is a full list of objects that are stored by the server, including roles, nodes, environments, and data bags. They are a fully text-based search and its queries can be made using wildcard, range, and fuzzy logic. While using Knife, a search can be made by using a subcommand from Knife.

    The following command is an example. To search by a platform ID, use the following command:

    knife search node 'rackspace:*' –i
    

    The result for the preceding command would be as follows:

    4 items found
    ip-1B45DE89.rackspace.internal
    ip-1B45DE89.rackspace.internal
    ip-1B45DE89.rackspace.internal
    ip-1B45DE89.rackspace.internal
    

    Tip

    Downloading the sample code

    You can download the sample code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.

    Similarly, you can search by instance type, node, environment, nested attributes, and multiple arguments.

  • Centralized distribution of cookbooks: As Chef-Solo works individually, it does not have the ability for distribution of cookbooks. Even if you have deployed Chef server, Chef-Solo will not be able to retrieve recipes from a centralized source.

  • Centralized API for integration with other infrastructure components: There is no centralized API for Chef-Solo to retrieve other configurations from a different machine. For instance, if your application needs database connectivity, you will not be able to get the IP of the database source. There are multiple solutions to address this problem, which we will discuss in the upcoming chapters.

  • Authentication: Chef-Solo has no authentication module; anyone can execute the recipes:

    # chef-solo privileges
    test ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/chef-solo
    #test is name of non-root user.
    
  • Persistent attributes: There is no centralized cookbook system for Chef-Solo; it just executes the recipes from a local cookbook.

Although Chef-Solo has fewer features, it provides the core use of developing cookbooks.

Moreover, Chef-Solo provides a simple way to start. You can build the system by using cookbooks and it's extremely useful for booting new machines.

Like chef-client, Chef-Solo can be used for servers, applications, or any physical machine.

       
About the Author
  • Naveed ur Rahman

    Naveed ur Rahman is a self-taught programmer and an avid traveler. When he is not experimenting with the latest in programming and deployment, he is out camping and watching cricket. His adventures in programming began at a very young age when he got introduced to GW-BASIC. Now, he has experience working for one of the biggest tech names in the Middle East. Having worked at the largest technology company in the Middle East, Naveed has helped teams create and deploy applications written in various languages using configuration management tools.

    Browse publications by this author
Configuration Management with Chef-Solo
Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days
Start now