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Chef Server

A Chef Server is an easy way to centrally manage the cookbooks, node attributes and run lists, and data bags. It is faster to deploy updates using a Chef Server instead of Chef Zero (bootstrap). Additionally it means configuration isn't limited to a single developer's machine, and that data bags won't need to be re-configured when setting up Chef Zero multiple times.

Dependencies

This cookbook primarily depends on the following cookbooks.

Please see those cookbook pages for details on attributes as some are overridden in this cookbooks attributes file (attributes/default.rb).

Installing Chef Server

For this lab the hardware requirements are very modest. A small amount of RAM and CPUs is okay as the server won't be doing too much most of the time. It is a good idea to start with a fresh OS install, and I will be using Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS.

I have attached a 50 GB volume to the instance as the boot volume is only 5 GB and that won't be large enough for storing the Chef cookbooks. The command log below include formatting that volume.

DNS

I updated the Amazon Web Service Route53 configuration to have a domain for this service:

chef.gswlab.ca A 162.246.156.221
barlow.gswlab.ca A 162.246.156.221

Preconfiguration

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt autoremove
$ sudo reboot
...

$ sudo parted -l
Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label
Model: QEMU QEMU HARDDISK (scsi)                                          
Disk /dev/sdb: 53.7GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:

$ sudo parted /dev/sdb mklabel gpt
$ sudo parted /dev/sdb mkpart primary ext4 2048s 100%
(starting at 2048s avoids partition alignment warning)

$ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1
$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /opt
(The UUIDs for the partition are then added to /etc/fstab, so it auto-mounts)
$ sudo reboot

$ df -H
/dev/sdb1        53G   55M   50G   1% /opt

Bootstrap

$ berks install
$ berks vendor /tmp/berkshelf/cookbooks
$ /usr/local/bin/knife zero bootstrap barlow \
    --node-name barlow --local-mode --overwrite \
    --run-list 'recipe[gsw-chef-server]' --ssh-user ubuntu \
    --sudo --config ~/.chef/knife-zero.rb

Post-Bootstrap: Admin User Configuration

$ sudo chef-server-ctl user-create jpbadger James Badger [email protected] 'PASSWORD' --filename jpbadger.pem
(I save my password and private key in a password manager)

$ sudo chef-server-ctl org-create gswlab 'GeoSensorWeb Lab' --association_user jpbadger --filename gswlab-validator.pem

The jpbadger.pem and gswlab-validator.pem files are installed on my development machine in the ~/.chef directory.

Knife config.rb

Each developer must set up their own config.rb file. This configuration file tells Knife how to access the Chef Server.

current_dir = File.dirname(__FILE__)
user = ENV['OPSCODE_USER'] || ENV['USER']
node_name                user
client_key               "#{ENV['HOME']}/.chef/#{user}.pem"
validation_client_name   "gswlab-validator"
validation_key           "#{ENV['HOME']}/.chef/gswlab-validator.pem"
chef_server_url          "https://chef.gswlab.ca/organizations/gswlab"
syntax_check_cache_path  "#{ENV['HOME']}/.chef/syntax_check_cache"
cookbook_copyright       "GeoSensorWeb Lab"
cookbook_license         "Apache-2.0"
cookbook_email           "[email protected]"

References

Backup and Restore

Chef: Backup and Restore a Standalone or Frontend install

TODO: I will be setting it up to backup automatically on a schedule to Amazon S3 or similar.

License and Authors

James Badger ([email protected])