Author: saurabhvajpayee

Devops Engineer

Kitchen Chef’s diagnosis center

Introduction

This time we familiarize you with the backings of chef kitchen. Chef kitchen provides you facility of trial and verification of your cookbooks over different  environment so that you can confidently use  them on your targeted infrastructure. This may be getting boring some times but here is always some seeds in oranges.  

Prerequisites

This blog requires an initial information about Git and Vagrant. This blog uses centos7   as platform. It needs basic understanding of chef, it’s cookbooks and chef kitchen. To know about chef cookbooks and work with  chef kitchen follow our previous blogs of this series Chef Start here with ease...


Setup Kitchen

To setup kitchen chase same procedure as we cater in our previous blog Chef-Kitchen  Do it simply .

Backings of  Kitchen

Chef kitchen is the diagnosis center of chef.  Here  you can test the authenticity of your cookbooks on different platforms and confidently use them on your infra. Kitchen achive this by using its configuration file where you define all the things which are necessary to run the complete cycle of kitchen.

.kitchen.yml

This file contains all the required stuff to  run chef kitchen. This file is divided into four major sections.



  • Driver: This is  the name of a driver that will be used to create platform instances used during cookbook testing. This is the default driver used for all platforms and suites unless a platform or suite specifies a driver to override the default driver for that platform or suite; a driver specified for a suite will override a driver set for a platform.


  • Provisioner: This specifies how the chef-client will be simulated during testing. chef_zero andchef_solo are the most common provisioners used for testing cookbooks


  • Platforms: This is a the name of a platform on which Kitchen will perform cookbook testing, for example,ubuntu-12.04 or centos-6.4; depending on the platform.
  • Suites: This is a collection of test suites, with each suite_name grouping defining an aspect of a cookbook to be tested.


.kitchen directory

This directory holds logs for every kitchen run for each platform entry in .kitchen.yml file. This folder also holds keypair for the ssh into your virtual environment.

Analysis of Kitchen

Kitchen performs its own complete cycle of testing via different phases.  Kitchen has its five phases i.e., create, converge, login, verify and destroy.  Each phase has its own significance and some specific task is gonna performed in every phase.

Create

In this step chef’s kitchen tool creates a virtual instance. This virtual instance could use cloud or any other virtualization technology. Chef supports cookbook testing across many cloud providers and virtualization technologies.

Converge

This phase is responsible for application of your cookbook on virtual  instance. Here your all  cookbooks deployed into the virtual instance, though in next steps you can verify the complete functioning of your cookbooks.

Login

This step creates a ssh session into  your machine and provide you a login into it. So that you can run your test to verify the proper functioning of your cookbook.

Verify

In this  step you manually perform all checks so that you can certify the authenticity of your cookbook over all platforms.

Destroy

This is the final step  of your kitchen testing cycle. Here you destroy your virtual environment after entire testing phases.



Here is also a combine command for all these phases i.e.,  kitchen test. This command club all the commands in below listed manner.
  • Kitchen destroy
  • Kitchen create
  • Kitchen converge
  • Kitchen verify


Hass finally this over!!  I know you too get frustrated with the theories. We now aware with the backings of Chef Kitchen.  


“Be Warned: I Am Bored. This Could Get Dangerous.”
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Chef-Kitchen Do it simply..

 

 

If you are from agile background you would be already aware about the importance of testing your code as you develop. As DevOps SCM tools are maturing where we try to have our complete infrastructure as code it becomes a dire necessity to have our infrastructure code to be tested as well. In this blog I’ll showcase how I’m using the testing capability of Chef to test our Chef code.

Prerequisites

This blog assumes that you have a basic understanding of Chef, Docker, Git and Vagrant. This blog is written in consideration with centos as platform. You can follow same procedure for ubuntu with some basic changes.
 
Setup Kitchen
Clone from our github repository to spin up a vagrant with kitchen and other chef tools.
 
 
  • Go to testkitchen directory.  
$ cd  Chef/centos/testkitchen
 
 
This directory includes a Vagrantfile, a cookbook and a knife.rb file.
 
  • View vagrantfile for provisioning.
This Vagrantfile have some basic vagrant provisioning with shell.
 
$ cat Vagrantfile
 
This file provision your vagrant using shell.
 
 
As this block contains a lot of stuff. FIrstly this need two rpm files to be placed in current directory (i.e. vagrant/chef/centos/testkitchen). Download these rpm using following commands. This vagrantfile uses centos/7 as base box.
 
$ wget ftp://195.220.108.108/linux/centos/7.2.1511/extras/x86_64/Packages/epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm
 
Next in this block we are installing docker and rvm to manage our ruby version to 2.2.4.
 
  • Spin Up Vagrant box
$ vagrant up
 
This will perform everything for you. And creates a running vagrant with centos7 platform. Next login into this vagrant box using following command.
 
$ vagrant  ssh
 
Your testing environment is ready and you are all set to use kitchen to test and verify your cookbooks in different platforms using docker container.  

Test your first cookbook  

Change directory to /vagrant. /vagrant directory is shared between host and guest machine.
 
$ cd /vagrant
 
This cloned repo has its first cookbook “helloworld” in cookbooks folder. This cookbook creates a directory and place a hello.txt file in it.
 
 
Go to /vagrant folder and start using kitchen.
  • Initialize kitchen
$ kitchen init –driver=docker
 
 
This command initialize mandatory stuff to start with your kitchen. This creates  .kitchen.yml, chefignore file and a test folder.
.kitchen.yml file is the main configuration file for kitchen. This file contains mainly 4 blocks driver, provisioner, platforms and suites.
    • Driver:  This is the name of driver that is used to create new node for testing
    • Provisioner: This is the chef provisioner to simulate test, chef-zero and chef-solo are the options.
    • Platforms: This is the type of platform on which kitchen runs test eg. ubuntu-14.04 and centos-7.1
    • Suites: This is the collection of test suites with runlist and attributes.
       
 
Chefignore file determine which files to ignore when uploading cookbooks.
Test folder contains all test files running over the cookbooks.
 
  • Install required gems
Install required gems by using bundle. As your directory contains a Gemfile where gems are described with their specific version.  
 
$ bundle install
 
Then to verify run following command.
 
$ gem list kitchen
As this install two essential gems kitchen-docker and test-kitchen.
 
  • List all  your nodes.
$ bundle exec kitchen list
This command list all your nodes with last action performed on them.

Start kitchen cycle

  • Create your node using following command
$ bundle exec kitchen create
 
    • This command pulls image of docker if they are not present locally.
    • Install  openssh-server and other essential packages in newly created docker container.
if get “Kitchen is finished.” as final output. Now verify with kitchen list once again.
 
 
  • Converge your node
This step deploys your cookbook to newly created node. So let’s tell kitchen which cookbook to run. Edit .kitchen.yml file and add recipe in runlist attribute of suits block.
Now run following command to converge your node.
 
$ bundle exec kitchen converge
 
    • Chef solo and dna.json got prepared and pushed into node /tmp/kitchen directory
    • This will put cookbook into the node and install chef by performing an Omnibus package installation.
    • Chef run initiated with information in .kitchen.yml file.
Verify again with kitchen list.
 
  • Login into node
$ bundle exec kitchen login  default-ubuntu-1404
&&
$ bundle exec kitchen login  default-centos
    • Login into node and manually verify /data directory and hello.txt file in it.
 
  • Verify your cookbook
Look into test directory structure.
 
 
As this directory contains “default” folder this is corresponding to your suit name i.e. default. Now create a directory structure to put files in particular location.
 
    • Use Bats to create test
 
$ mkdir -p test/integration/default/bats
 
Busser is the component which provides facility of testing in your node. Bats directory tells kitchen to which Busser runner plugin needs to be installed on the remote instance. In other words the bats directory name will cause Busser to installbusser-bats from RubyGems.
 
  • Write first test file.
$ vim  test/integration/default/bats/hellotest.bats
 
#!/usr/bin/env bats
 
@test “/data directory found in path” {
 run stat /data
 [ “$status” -eq 0 ]
}
 
@test “hello.txt file found in path” {
 run stat /data/hello.txt
 [ “$status” -eq 0 ]
}
  • Run kitchen verify
$ bundle exec kitchen verify
 
Now verify again with kitchen list, and see last action.
 
 
    • Use serverspec to create test
 
$ mkdir -p test/integration/default/serverspec
 
  • Write a test
$ vim  test/integration/default/serverspec/hellotest_spec.rb
 
require ‘serverspec’
 
# Required by serverspec
 
set :backend, :exec
 
describe “file hello.txt status” do
 it “file hello.txt” do
   expect(file(“/data/hello.txt”)).to exist
 end
end
 
  • Run kitchen verify
$ bundle exec kitchen verify
 
Now verify again with kitchen list, and see last action.
 
 
 
  • Destroy your node
$ bundle exec kitchen destroy
 
This will destroy your node.

Kitchen test

$ bundle exec kitchen test
 
Kitchen test is an option to perform complete kitchen cycle with one command. This destroy existed nodes and then create, converge, verify node with your predefined suit in .kitchen.yml. And finally it destroy the node.
 
Now your cookbook is tested. So feel confident to use it.  

Chef-Cookbooks Walls of chef-house..

Introduction

As we work with cookbook in our previous blog, we are now aware about how chef really works and manage machines using cookbooks. Its crucial to understand the potential of thoughts and theories behind any concept. According to Albert Einstein,
“A Theory Can Be Proved By Experiment;
But No Paths Leads from Experiments To The Birth Of Theory”

Prerequisites

To follow this article you need a prior information about Git and Vagrant. This blog uses centos7   as platform. It needs basic understanding of chef and it’s cookbooks. To know about chef cookbooks follow our previous blogs of this series Chef Start here with ease.. .

Get started

Clone our github repository and spin up a bare centos7 vagrant machine.
Go to Chef/centos/chefCookbooksBackings directory.
$ cd  Chef/centos/chefCookbooksBackings
  • This directory have a Vagrantfile. Which can initiate a centos7 vagrant box.
$ cat Vagrantfile
This file update and install some basic tools in your vagrant machine using vagrant shell provisioning.
  • Download Chefdk using below available command
$ cd Chef/centos/chefResources
$ wget https://opscode-omnibus-packages.s3.amazonaws.com/el/7/x86_64/chefdk-0.11.2-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
  • This directory also includes a knife.rb file which sets the cookbook folder path and default editor for the virtual machine.
  • Launch new vagrant machine and login into it via ssh.
$ vagrant up
$ vagrant ssh

Cookbooks

As per chef’s official document “A cookbook is the fundamental unit of configuration and policy distribution. A cookbook defines a scenario and contains everything that is required to support that scenario.”
Chef cookbooks are the first configurational unit of chef. These are the like a box which contains all the basic tools for the comfortable management of any machine. It consist of
  • Recipes
  • Attribute
  • File
  • Templates
  • libraries, definitions, and custom resources

Directory Structure

The directory structure of any cookbook  is very straight and simple. We took an example cookbook which we are going to create in our next section, so have a look on what it looks like on completion.
$ tree cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/
  • Attributes
This directory contains all files which holds the values of the variables used in the cookbook.
  • Definitions
This directory contains definition of new created resources.
  • Files
This folder holds static file used in cookbook.
  • Libraries
Allows users to use extended ruby libraries for new class declarations.
  • Providers
This will contains actions which will be taken on using a custom resource declared in resources directory.
  • Recipes
This directory holds all the the recipes of any cookbook. These are the main execution part of the cookbook.
  • Resources
Here custom resources are defined.
  • Templates
This directory provide templates for the dynamic solutions of a cookbook.
  • Metadata.rb
This file ensures that every cookbook is deployed correctly. Also holds the general information for any cookbook as like author copyright and version.

Try with a complex one

This time we introduce some extended concepts of chef cookbooks in our example cookbook. As in our previous blogs problem statement remain same to install nginx and setup nginx vhost with our cookbook. But this time we tried to be more efficient so that we can create multiple vhost in a single chef-client run.
First create a dedicated directory for our cookbooks. As in knife.rb file it will be created by following command.
$ mkdir /vagrant/cookbooks
Chef manage its cookbooks using a version control system so next we initialize and also make our first commit for /vagrant/cookbooks directory. Provide your name and email for git configuration.
$ mkdir /vagrant/cookbooks
$ cd /vagrant/cookbooks
$ git init
$ git add .
$ git config –global user.email “[email protected]“
$ git config –global user.name “Your Name”
$ git commit -m “Initial Commit”
Now you are ready to start with the creation of your next cookbook.
$ knife cookbook create nginxVhostExtended -C “Saurabh Vajpayee” -m “[email protected]” -I nginxv1 -r md

Create default recipe

Create a default recipe with following content to install  nginx.
$ vim /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/recipes/default.rb
include_recipe ‘yum-epel’
package node[‘nginx’][‘packages’] do
action :install
end
service ‘iptables’ do
action :stop
end
service ‘nginx’ do
action [:start, :enable]
end
This time we also  included another recipe “yum-epel” in our default recipe.
Generate another recipe to configure vhost with following content.
$ chef generate recipe /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/ vhost
$ vim /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/recipes/vhost.rb
include_recipe ‘nginxVhostExtended’
node[‘nginx’][‘vhost’].each do |name, attrs|
 nginxVhostExtended_vhost ‘name’ do
   port attrs[‘port’]
   webroot attrs[‘webroot’]
   servername attrs[‘servername’]
   conffile attrs[‘conffile’]
 end
end
service ‘nginx’ do
action :restart
end
This recipe contains a custom resource  “nginxVhostExtended_vhost” which has its definition and attribute declaration under provider and resource directory.

Generate attribute file

Generate default attribute file with following defined variables.
$ chef generate attribute /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/
default
$ vim /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/attributes/default.rb
default[‘nginx’][‘packages’] = “nginx”
default[‘nginx’][‘port’] = 80
default[‘nginx’][‘webroot’] = “/usr/share/nginx/blog”
default[‘nginx’][‘servername’] = “opstree.com/blog/”
default[‘nginx’][‘conffile’] = “opstree.com/blog/.conf”
default[‘nginx’][‘vhost’] = {}
This attribute file holds default values for variable used in templates

Generate template files

Generate two templates for conf and index.html files. Use following content to paste.
$ chef generate template /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/ chefmanagedconf.conf
$ chef generate template /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/ index.html
$ vim /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/templates/default/chefmanagedconf.conf.erb
server {
   listen       ;
   server_name  ;
   location / {
       root   ;
       index  index.html index.htm;
   }
   error_page  404              /404.html;
   location = /404.html {
       root   ;
   }
   # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
   error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
   location = /50x.html {
       root   ;
        }
  }
$ vim /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/templates/default/index.html.erb
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd”>

<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en”>

   <head>

       <title>Test Page for the Opstree Server </title>

   </head>

   <body>

       <h1>Welcome to <strong> <%= @servername %> </strong></h1>

   </body>

</html>

Generate a lwrp

Generate a lwrp (light weight resource provider ) using knife command and use following content.
$ chef generate lwrp /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/ vhost
$ vim  /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/resources/vhost.rb
actions :configure
default_action :configure
attribute :name,
 kind_of: String,
 required: true,
 name_attribute: true
attribute :port,
 kind_of: Fixnum
attribute :webroot,
 kind_of: String
attribute :servername,
 kind_of: String
attribute :conffile,
 kind_of: String
$ vim /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhostExtended/providers/vhost.rb
action :configure do
[:webroot, :conffile, :servername, :port].each do |attr|
      unless new_resource.instance_variable_get(“@#{attr}”)
        new_resource.instance_variable_set(“@#{attr}”, node[‘nginx’][attr])
      end
    end
[:webroot].each do |attr|
      directory new_resource.instance_variable_get(“@#{attr}”) do
        mode ‘0755’
        recursive true
      end
      template “#{new_resource.webroot}/index.html” do
        source ‘index.html.erb’
        variables(
         servername: new_resource.servername
       )
      end
    end
template “/etc/nginx/conf.d/#{new_resource.conffile}” do
  source ‘chefmanagedconf.conf.erb’
  variables(
         port: new_resource.port,
         servername: new_resource.servername,
         webroot: new_resource.webroot
       )
end
line = “127.0.0.1 #{new_resource.servername}”
file = Chef::Util::FileEdit.new(‘/etc/hosts’)
file.insert_line_if_no_match(/#{line}/, line)
file.write_file
end
Now our cookbook is ready but as we define in yum-epel dependency in our default  cookbook so in next steps we install this cookbook from chef repository.
$ git status
$ git add .
$ git commit -m “nginxVhostExtended cookbook added”
$ knife cookbook site install yum-epel

Go for it

Lets run our cookbook to just install nginx using default recipe. Create   installrunlist.json with following content.
$ vim installrunlist.json
{
“run_list”: [
“recipe[yum-epel]”,
“recipe[nginxVhostExtended]”
]
}
$ chef-client  –local-mode -j /vagrant/runlist.json
This will install your nginx server only.
Now we create a runlist file for configuring vhost.
$ vim vhostrunlist.json
{
  “nginx”: {
     “vhost”: {
       “vhost1”: {
         “webroot”: “/usr/share/nginx/chef”,
             “servername”: “chef.opstree.com”,
             “conffile”: “chef.opstree.com.conf”
             },
        “vhost2”: {
          “webroot”: “/usr/share/nginx/blog”,
             “servername”: “opstree.com/blog/”,
             “conffile”: “opstree.com/blog/.conf”
             }
           }
 },
  “run_list”: [
“recipe[yum-epel]”,
“recipe[nginxVhostExtended]”,
       “recipe[nginxVhostExtended::vhost]”
              ]
}
$ chef-client  –local-mode -j /vagrant/vhostrunlist.json
This will run and configure two vhost opstree.com/blog/ and chef.opstree.com on your machine. Now with our new cookbook we are able to create and configure multiple vhost in single run.
We took some extended concepts of chef cookbooks. Chef and it’s cookbooks are beyond away from all limits. This is just a drop from the ocean but every drop in the ocean counts…
“You need an entire life just to know about tomatoes. Ferran Adria”
Don’t be panic by messing up with a lot of things and start playing with your own written cookbooks.

Chef-Cookbooks Roast it perfectly..

 

Introduction

This is our first major step towards our learnings. We are now quite sound with the ABC’s of chef. Now we announce the most compelling facet of chef. Cookbooks are the most crucial segment of the chef’s kingdom. Nothing worth having comes easy, so kickoff with more efforts.
“A Real Test Of a Good Chef Is, Perfectly Roasted Chicken.”
Julia Child
Wait wait wait !! fire your all cylinders but remember to breath.

Prerequisites

This article assumes that you are aware with the basics of Git and Vagrant. You know the basic functioning of chef and its recipes and resources. This article is written with centos7 platform. To know about chef follow our previous blogs of this series Chef Start here with ease.. .

Get started

Clone our git repo and fire up a vagrant box with this.

  • Go to Chef/centos/chefCookbooks directory. This directory contains a Vagrantfile, which can launch a centos7 vagrant machine with Chefdk and other essential tools installed.
$ cat Vagrantfile

  • Download Chefdk using below available command
$ cd Chef/centos/chefCookbooks
$ wget https://opscode-omnibus-packages.s3.amazonaws.com/el/7/x86_64/chefdk-0.11.2-1.el7.x86_64.rpm

  • This directory also includes a knife.rb file which sets the cookbook folder path and default editor for the virtual machine.
  • Launch a new vagrant machine and login into it.
$ vagrant up

$ vagrant ssh

Your working environment is ready. Let’s start with chef cookbooks.

Create your first cookbook

First create a dedicated directory for our cookbooks. As in knife.rb file it will be created by following command.
$ mkdir /vagrant/cookbooks
Chef manage its cookbooks using a version control system so next we initialize and also make our first commit for /vagrant/cookbooks directory. Provide your name and email for git configuration.
$ mkdir /vagrant/cookbooks
$ cd /vagrant/cookbooks
$ git init
$ git add .
$ git config –global user.email “[email protected]“
$ git config –global user.name “Your Name”
$ git commit -m “Initial Commit”
Now you are ready to start with the creation of your first cookbook.

Call up with knife

We are using knife to generate are cookbooks. Generate your cookbook for installing nginx and to set a virtual hosts opstree.com/blog/ and chef.opstree.com with this.
Generate our first cookbook using below written command. This command setup copyright, email, license, and readme format options for your cookbook.
$ knife cookbook create nginxVhost -C “Saurabh Vajpayee” -m “[email protected]” -I nginxv1 -r md

Let’s create a recipe

Create the default recipe with below provided command and put below available content.
$ vim /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhost/recipes/default.rb

package ‘epel-release’ do
action :install
end

package ‘nginx’ do
action :install
end

directory “#{node[‘nginx’][‘webroot’]}” do
 recursive true
end

template “/etc/nginx/conf.d/#{node[‘nginx’][‘conffile’]}” do
 source ‘chefmanagedconf.conf.erb’
 variables(
   :port => “#{node[‘nginx’][‘port’]}”,
   :servername => “#{node[‘nginx’][‘servername’]}”,
   :webroot => “#{node[‘nginx’][‘webroot’]}”
 )
end

template “#{node[‘nginx’][‘webroot’]}/index.html” do
 source ‘index.html.erb’
 variables(
   :servername => “#{node[‘nginx’][‘servername’]}”
 )
end

line = “127.0.0.1 #{node[‘nginx’][‘servername’]}”
file = Chef::Util::FileEdit.new(‘/etc/hosts’)
file.insert_line_if_no_match(/#{line}/, line)
file.write_file
service ‘iptables’ do
 action :stop
end

service ‘nginx’ do
action :restart
end

This file includes multiple chef resources and some variable like ‘webroot’, conffile, port and servername. These variables have their default values under attribute directory and used in the templates which are next to create.

Create attribute file

This file contains the default value of your variables used in recipes. Create a default.rb file and place these values.
$ chef generate attribute /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhost/ default
$ vim /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhost/attributes/default.rb
default[‘nginx’][‘port’] = “80”
default[‘nginx’][‘webroot’] = “/usr/share/nginx/blog”
default[‘nginx’][‘servername’] = “opstree.com/blog/”
default[‘nginx’][‘conffile’] = “opstree.com/blog/.conf”

Create templates

Create template file to provide dynamic touch to your files. First create template for “configuration” files, and put below provided content.$ chef generate template /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhost/ chefmanagedconf.conf

$ vim /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhost/templates/default/chefmanagedconf.conf.erb

server
{
   listen       <%= @port  %>;
   server_name  ;
   location / {
       root   ;
       index  index.html index.htm;
   }
   error_page  404              /404.html;
   location = /404.html {
       root   ;
   }
   # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
   error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
   location = /50x.html {
       root   ;
        }
  }
And next place template for index.html file with following content.

$ chef generate template /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhost/ index.html

$ vim /vagrant/cookbooks/nginxVhost/templates/default/index.html.erb

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd”>

<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en”>
<head>
<title>Test Page for the Opstree Server </title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Welcome to <strong> <%= @servername %> </strong></h1>
</body>
</html>

Your cookbook is ready for initial workings. Let’s run it.

Run and feel like a million bucks

Run your cookbook with below command, and relax for a while.
$ sudo chef-client –local-mode  –runlist ‘recipe[nginxVhost]’
By default this cookbook setup opstree.com/blog/ vhost if you want to setup another vhost chef.opstree.com then overiride default values of variables. To do this create a json file which declares the new values for variables.
$ vim /vagrant/runlist.json
{
“nginxVhost”: {
“webroot” : “/usr/share/nginx/chef”,
“servername” : “chef.opstree.com”,
“conffile”: “chef.opstree.com.conf”
},
“run_list”: [
“recipe[nginxVhost]”
]
}
And run chef-client once again with following commands.
$ sudo chef-client –local-mode  -j /vagrant/runlist.json
Now you  have power to create as many vhost automatically with chef.

Verify the vhost

$ curl opstree.com/blog/
$ curl chef.opstree.com
From now we have to work hard to match the expectation of the industry. You are now developing into a chef proficient. Do some experiments and play hard.

Chef-Recipes Bake it calmly..

(source: google.com)
 

Introduction

This is very crucial state of your learnings with chef. It’s not easy to deposit that much of attention continuously so be calm and reassemble all your amplitude for the next bout. Straightway we are going to clash with chef-recipes. We will try to maintain the balance so we didn’t feel overfed.
“Never Eat More Then You Can Lift. Miss Piggy”
(source: google.com)

Prerequisites

This article is written in consideration with centos as platform. We assume that you have basic understanding of Vagrant, Git and Chef-Resources. To know about chef resources follow our previous blogs of this series Chef Start here with ease.. .

Get started

Clone our git repository to create your learning vagrant environment.
 
 
  • Change your current directory to Chef/centos/chefRecipes. A vagrant file is present here with some bash provisioning to provide you a complete chef learning environment.
$ cat Vagrantfile
Trigger a vm using following commands.
 
$ vagrant up
 
$ vagrant ssh
This will spin up and login into a centos7 vagrant machine with chef installed in it.

Recipe

A recipe is the first significant element of a cookbook to manage any environment. A recipe club together multiple resources (built-in and custom )and some ruby code. The recipes are ruby files with “.rb” extension. These are generally part of a cookbook. A recipe may be dependent over any other recipe. The recipe ensure the legitimate use of templates and files.
 
Recipes also contains attributes for different resources. These attributes help chef to maintain the desired state of any machine under chef’s attention.

Shape your first set of recipes

Let’s start with our first recipe. We deal with our common problem statement for all articles. We are installing nginx web server and then create two vhost chef.opstree.com and opstree.com/blog/ using a set of recipes. With this you can gently start feeling the power of chef and automation.
 

  • Create a nginxInstall.rb file

 
Create nginxInstall.rb using below command and put the following content in that file.
$ vim nginxInstall.rb
 
package ‘epel-release’ do
action :install
end
 
package ‘nginx’ do
action :install
end
 
service ‘nginx’ do
action [ :enable, :start ]
end
 
This will install nginx on your machine with default configuration, and also start it.

  • Create nginxVhost.rb file

Create a nginxvhost.rb file to configure your vhost. Paste the following content in it.
 
$ vim nginxVhost.rb
directory ‘/usr/share/nginx/blog’ do
   recursive true
end
directory ‘/usr/share/nginx/chef’ do
  recursive true
end
file  ‘/usr/share/nginx/blog/index.html’ do content ‘Chef Session

Hello this is Blog from Opstree !!’

end

file  ‘/usr/share/nginx/chef/index.html’ do

 content ‘Chef Session Hello this is Chef Opstree !!’

end

file ‘/etc/nginx/conf.d/opstree.com/blog/.conf’ do content IO.read(‘/vagrant/recipes/opstree.com/blog/.conf’)
end

file ‘/etc/nginx/conf.d/chef.opstree.com.conf’ do

 content IO.read(‘/vagrant/recipes/chef.opstree.com.conf’)

end

service ‘nginx’ do

 action [:stop, :start]

end

 

Download the content of files opstree.com/blog/.conf and chef.opstree.com.conf .
 
This recipe configure the two desired vhost chef.opstree.com and opstree.com/blog/ for you. This recipe includes directory, file and service resources. It also includes IO.read ruby function to read files.
 
Directory resource creates complete data directory structure for chef and blog vhost. File resource maintain content for index.html and .conf files of chef.opstree.com and opstree.com/blog/.

  • Make entry in /etc/hosts

 
This is also possible with chef but for for now we are doing it manually.
$ sudo vim /etc/hosts
 
127.0.0.1 opstree.com/blog/
127.0.0.1 chef.opstree.com

  • Get set go

 
Now run your recipes one by one and sense the fascination with chef.
 
$ sudo chef-apply nginxInstall.rb
 
$ sudo chef-apply nginxVhost.rb
 
Now all is set, your virtual host are ready to visit.
 
$ curl chef.opstree.com
 
$ curl opstree.com/blog/
Recipes are your first step towards chef expertise. Start behaving like flier, clench the nut bolts and start practising with chef-recipes. Took some basic problems and resolve them with recipes. More you dig into the sea more you get.
 
“The Great Recipes For Success Is To Work And Always Work. Leon Gambetta”
 
You are now going to be addict of chef and automation, be aware of your demands .
“Dear stomach you’re bored not hungry, So shut up !!”
(source: google.com)