Using Version Control system is a fundamental part of infrastructure automation. There are multiple kinds of version control system such as SVN, CVS, and GIT. Due to the popularity of GIT among the Chef community, we will use the GIT setup.
Note − Don’t think of building an infrastructure as a code without a version control system.

On Windows

Step 1 − Download the Windows installer from www.git-scm.org and follow the installation steps.
Step 2 − Sign up for a central repository on GitHub.
Step 3 − Upload the ssh key to the GitHub account, so that one can interact with it easily. For details on ssh key visit the following link https://help.github.com/articles/generatingssh-keys.
Step 4 − Finally create a repo on the github account by visiting https://github.com/new with the name of chef-repo.
Before actually starting to write a cookbook, one can set up an initial GIT repository on the development box and clone the empty repository provided by Opscode.
Step 1 − Download Opscode Chef repository empty structure.
$ wget https://github.com/opscode/chef-repo/tarball/master
Step 2 − Extract the tar ball.
$ tar –xvf master
Step 3 − Rename the directory.
$ mv opscode-chef-repo-2c42c6a/ chef-repo
Step 4 − Change the current working directory to chef repo.
$ cd chef-repo
Step 5 − Initialize a fresh get repo.
$ git init.
Step 6 − Connect to your repo on the git hub.
$ git remote add origin git@github.com:vipin022/chef-
Step 7 − Push the local repo to github.
$ git add.
$ git commit –m “empty repo structure added”
$ git push –u origin maste

By using the above procedure, you will get an empty chef repo in place. You can then start working on developing the recipes and cookbooks. Once done, you can push the changes to the GitHub.

Chef – Workstation Setup

Chef follows the concept of client-server architecture, hence in order to start working with Chef one needs to set up Chef on the workstation and develop the configuration locally. Later it can be uploaded to Chef server to make them working on the Chef nodes, which needs to be configured.
Opscode provides a fully packaged version, which does not have any external prerequisites. This fully packaged Chef is called the omnibus installer.

On Windows Machine

Step 1 − Download the setup .msi file of chefDK on the machine.
Step 2 − Follow the installation steps and install it on the target location.
The setup will look as shown in the following screenshot.

ChefDK Path Variable
$ echo $PATH
/c/opscode/chef/bin:/c/opscode/chefdk/bin:

On Linux Machine

In order to set up on the Linux machine, we need to first get curl on the machine.

Step 1 − Once curl is installed on the machine, we need to install Chef on the workstation using Opscode’s omnibus Chef installer.
$ curl –L https://www.opscode.com/chef/install.sh | sudo bash
Step 2 − Install Ruby on the machine.
Step 3 − Add Ruby to path variable.
$ echo ‘export PATH = ”/opt/chef/embedded/bin:$PATH”’ ≫ ~/.bash_profile &&
source ~/.bash_profile

The Omnibus Chef will install Ruby and all the required Ruby gems into /opt/chef/embedded by adding /opt/chef/embedded/bin directory to the .bash_profile file.
If Ruby is already installed, then install the Chef Ruby gem on the machine by running the following command.
$ gem install chef

Chef – Client Setup

In order to make Chef node communicate with Chef server, you need to set up Chef client on the node.

Chef Client

This is one of the key components of Chef node, which retrieves the cookbooks from the Chef server and executes them on the node. It is also known as the Chef provisioner.
Here, we will use Vagrant to manage VM. Vagrant can also be configured with the provisioner such as Shell script, Chef and Puppet to get VM into a desired state. In our case, we will use Vagrant to manage VMs using VirtualBox and Chef client as a provisioner.
Step 1 − Download and install VirtualBox from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/downlod
Step 2 − Download and install Vagrant at http://downloads.vagrantup.com
Step 3 − Install Vagrant Omnibus plugin to enable Vagrant to install Chef client on the VM.
$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-omnibus

Creating and Booting Virtual

Step 1 − We can download the required Vagrant box from the Opscode vagrant repo. Download the opscode-ubuntu-12.04 box from the following URL https://opscode-vmbento.s3.amazonaws.com/vagrant/opscode_ubuntu-12.04_provisionerless.box
Step 2 − Once you have the Vagrant file, download the path you need to edit the Vagrant file.
vipin@laptop:~/chef-repo $ subl Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
config.vm.box = "opscode-ubuntu-12.04"
config.vm.box_url = https://opscode-vm-bento.s3.amazonaws.com/
vagrant/opscode_ubuntu-12.04_provisionerless.box
config.omnibus.chef_version = :latest
config.vm.provision :chef_client do |chef|
chef.provisioning_path = "/etc/chef"
chef.chef_server_url = "https://api.opscode.com/
organizations/<YOUR_ORG>"
chef.validation_key_path = "/.chef/<YOUR_ORG>-validator.pem"
chef.validation_client_name = "<YOUR_ORG>-validator"
chef.node_name = "server"
end
end
In the above program, you need to update the <YOUR_ORG> name with the correct or required organization name.
Step 3 − Next step after the configuration is, to get the vagrant box up. For this, you need to move to the location where Vagrant box is located and run the following command.
$ vagrant up
Step 4 − Once the machine is up, you can login to the machine using the following command.
$ vagrant ssh
In the above command, vagrantfile is written in a Ruby Domain Specific Language (DSL) for configuring the vagrant virtual machine.
In the vagrant file, we have the config object. Vagrant will use this config object to configure the VM.
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
…….
End
Inside the config block, you will tell vagrant which VM image to use, in order to boot the node.
config.vm.box = "opscode-ubuntu-12.04"
config.vm.box_url = https://opscode-vm-bento.s3.amazonaws.com/
vagrant/opscode_ubuntu-12.04_provisionerless.box
In the next step, you will tell Vagrant to download the omnibus plugin.
config.omnibus.chef_version = :latest
After selecting the VM box to boot, configure how to provision the box using Chef.
config.vm.provision :chef_client do |chef|
…..
End
Inside this, you need to set up instruction on how to hook up the virtual node to the Chef server. You need to tell Vagrant where you need to store all the Chef stuff on the node.
chef.provisioning_path = "/etc/chef"

So, this brings us to the end of blog. This Tecklearn ‘How to Set up Chef on your system’ blog helps you with commonly asked questions if you are looking out for a job in DevOps. If you wish to learn Chef and build a career in DevOps domain, then check out our interactive, Continuous Delivery using Chef Training, that comes with 24*7 support to guide you throughout your learning period. Please find the link for course details:
https://www.tecklearn.com/course/continuous-delivery-using-chef/

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