Chef Server 12 Installation and Configuration

In our previous posts we learnt about Chef Workstation, now its time to move further with Actual Chef Server Installation and Configuration. Those who want to understand about Chef must visit below posts to get to the pace of chef series at Thinknyx Technologies:
Start Automation with Chef?
Chef objects and Recipes?
Chef Cookbooks?
Chef Cookbooks Part-II
Chef run-list?
Testing cookbooks?

In this post we will see the Installation of Latest Chef Server Version 12, before proceeding with the installation lets poi down some pre-requisities:

1.) An x86_64 compatible system architecture
2.) FQDN or an IP address
3.) Network Time Protocol (NTP) to prevent clock drift

There are different configuration options for Chef Server Installation.

1.) Easiest is to take the Chef server from “Chef Vendor”, all in one. Use and Pay basis.
2.) Install your local Chef server (which is further having options like standalone, HA etc.)

Steps for Chef Server Installation on Local Standalone Server:

1.) Download the package from below link:

http://downloads.chef.io/chef-server/

2.) As a superuser, install the chef package

[root@thinknyx]# rpm -ivh chef-server-core-12.8.0-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
warning: chef-server-core-12.8.0-1.el6.x86_64.rpm: Header V4 DSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 83ef826a: NOKEY
Preparing… ########################################### [100%]
1:chef-server-core ########################################### [100%]

3.) Chef server is composed of many different services bundled together in a single package, it will be difficult to run them in a sequence manually. So chef has given a provision for us to start and configure all of the services in sequence with a single command. This may take few minutes but you will see the sequence on your screen

[root@thinknyx]# chef-server-ctl reconfigure
Starting Chef Client, version 12.12.19
resolving cookbooks for run list: [“private-chef::default”]
Synchronizing Cookbooks:
– private-chef (0.1.0)
– enterprise (0.10.1)
– apt (2.9.2)
– yum (3.11.0)
– openssl (4.4.0)
– runit (1.6.0)
– chef-sugar (3.3.0)
– packagecloud (0.2.4)
Installing Cookbook Gems:
Compiling Cookbooks…
.
.
.
chef/recipes/nginx.rb:35:in `block in from_file’ at 1 location:
– /var/opt/opscode/local-mode-cache/cookbooks/private-chef/recipes/nginx.rb:35:in `block in from_file’

Chef Client finished, 392/463 resources updated in 09 minutes 54 seconds
Chef Server Reconfigured!

4.) This Chef Server Package will provide you with the Chef Configuration Management software, but this is not where we stop. For any perfect environment we would require a good reporting and better management console. By default Chef Server package will not have the Chef console and Chef reporting features, you have to install and configure two additional packages to use these Chef features. We would suggest you to install them for better vision and environment reporting

a.) Chef Management Console Installation and Configuration

https://downloads.chef.io/chef-manage/

[root@thinknyx]# rpm -ivh chef-manage-2.4.3-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
warning: chef-manage-2.4.3-1.el6.x86_64.rpm: Header V4 DSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 83ef826a: NOKEY
Preparing… ########################################### [100%]
1:chef-manage ########################################### [100%]

Thank you for installing the Chef Management Console add-on!

The next step in the process is to run:
chef-manage-ctl reconfigure

[root@thinknyx]# chef-server-ctl reconfigure
Starting Chef Client, version 12.12.19
resolving cookbooks for run list: [“private-chef::default”]
.
.
.
Chef Server Reconfigured!

[root@thinknyx]# chef-manage-ctl reconfigure
To use this software, you must agree to the terms of the software license agreement.
Press any key to continue.
Type ‘yes’ to accept the software license agreement, or anything else to cancel.
yes
Starting Chef Client, version 12.4.1
resolving cookbooks for run list: [“omnibus-chef-manage::default”]
.
.
.
Running handlers:
Running handlers complete
Chef Client finished, 63/80 resources updated in 149.568856627 seconds
chef-manage Reconfigured!

a.) Chef Report Package Installation and Configuration

https://downloads.chef.io/reporting/

[root@thinknyx]# rpm -ivh opscode-reporting-1.6.4-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
warning: opscode-reporting-1.6.4-1.el6.x86_64.rpm: Header V4 DSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 83ef826a: NOKEY
Preparing… ########################################### [100%]
1:opscode-reporting ########################################### [100%]
Thank you for installing the Opscode reporting addon!

[root@thinknyx]# chef-server-ctl reconfigure
Starting Chef Client, version 12.12.19
resolving cookbooks for run list: [“private-chef::default”]
Synchronizing Cookbooks:
.
.
.
Chef Server Reconfigured!

[root@thinknyx]# opscode-reporting-ctl reconfigure
To use this software, you must agree to the terms of the software license agreement.
Press any key to continue.
Type ‘yes’ to accept the software license agreement, or anything else to cancel.
yes
Starting Chef Client, version 12.8.1
.
.
.
Running handlers:
Running handlers complete
Chef Client finished, 42/55 resources updated in 01 minutes 11 seconds
opscode-reporting Reconfigured!

We are all done with the Chef Server, Chef Console and Chef Reporting installations and configurations.

In our next post we will show you how to establish a connection between Chef Workstation and Chef Server.