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Chef- Repo

Chef – Repo

Every Chef workstation has at least one Chef repository. The Chef repo is where all working copies of the cookbooks, recipes, templates, and so on live. Chef Repo contains

  • Cookbooks ( including recipes, attributes, custom resources, libraries, and templates)

  • Data bags

  • Policyfiles

The chef-repo directory should be synchronized with a version control system, such as git. All of the data in the chef-repo should be treated like source code.

You’ll use the chef and knife commands to upload data to the Chef Infra Server from the chef-repo directory. Once uploaded, Chef Infra Client uses that data to manage the nodes registered with the Chef Infra Server and to ensure that it applies the right cookbooks, policyfiles, and settings to the right nodes in the right order.

Directory Structure

Directory Description
.chef/ A hidden directory that is used to store validation key files and optionally a config.rb file.
cookbooks/ Contains cookbooks that have been downloaded from the Chef Supermarket or created locally.
data_bags/ Stores data bags (and data bag items) in JSON (.json) format.
policyfiles/ Stores Policyfiles in Ruby (.rb) format.

Create the chef-repo

Use the chef generate repo command to create your chef-repo directory along with the base folder structure.

chef generate repo <REPO_NAME>

Create Sample Repo named - apache2_repo

chef generate repo apache2_repo
Generating Chef Infra repo apache2_repo
- Ensuring correct Chef Infra repo file content
Your new Chef Infra repo is ready! Type `cd apache2_repo` to enter it.

Your new Chef Infra repo is ready! Type `cd apache2_repo` to enter it.

.chef folder

Really, the only files you need from the starter kit are the .chef folder files:

  • The organization’s validator private key file

  • Your user private key file

  • A knife.rb file

Chef supermarket

The supermarket is a site that provides shared cookbooks. There is a public supermarket that contains community-created and -maintained cookbooks. This site is hosted by Chef and is available at https://supermarket.chef.io

There are two versions of Supermarket available today.

Public Supermarket
This is available at the Chef Supermarket site. This is an open source project, you can find and contribute to the repo on GitHub.

Private Supermarket
There is also a version of Supermarket that can be run privately in your own infrastructure.

You will need Knife to interact with the Supermarket

Chef Knife

Knife is a command-line tool that supplies the interface between your chef-repo and your Chef server.

  • It allows developers to upload their work on the workstation to the Chef server, from where it can be distributed to the nodes during their Chef client runs.

  • Knife also allows you to obtain cookbooks from the supermarket, and it provides a mechanism to bootstrap nodes.

You can find more about Knife on Next Tutorial.

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