Chef is a popular configuration management tool that allows IT admins to automate the deployment, management, and secure maintenance of IT resources across in an environment. Chef has three components: Chef Workstation or Desktop, Chef Server, and Chef Client/Node. We discussed how to install the Check Workstation here. The chef server is the center of the operation. It stores manage and provide configuration settings to all Chef components. The previous post showed you how to install the Chef workstation. This post shows you how to install the Chef server, its central repository that manages all components. To get started with installing the Chef server, follow the steps below:
Prepare Ubuntu
Before installing the Chef server, you’ll want to update Ubuntu and install some basic tools to download Chef packages. To do that, run the commands below: After that, set the Ubuntu server hostname. For this post, we’re going to use chef.example.com as the server hostname. Run the commands below to set it. You may also configure its host record in the /etc/hosts file. Then add a line to reference the server IP. Save the file and exit.
Download and Install Chef Automate
Now that the Ubuntu server is prepared, use the commands below to download the Chef server packages. You can visit this download site to find the latest version to download. After downloading the server packages, run the commands below to install. Wait for the installation to complete. Once done, run the commands below to accept its licensing terms and configure the server’s services. You should see something similar to the lines below: The chef comes with a utility to manage basic tasks like creating the admin account, organization, and others. To create an admin account, use the comment format: An RSA key will be generated in the filename specified. For example, to create a new admin account with the full name Super Admin and store it in your home folder, run the commands below: After that, you’ll also want to create an organization. Run the commands below to create an organization. Full details of the option above
example – Organization short name. Must begin with a non-white space character. “Example INC.” – Organization full name –association_user – the admin account created earlier –filename – filename to store the RSA key for validation
Install Chef Manage
Chef Mange is a premium add-on that allows you to use a web interface to manage Chef tasks. If free up to 25 nodes. To install Chef Manage, run the commands below: When you’re done, log in to the web interface using the server hostname or IP address. That should bring up the Chef Mange web portal. Login with the admin account created above and begin setting up some basic tasks. Conclusion: This post showed you how to install the Chef Server on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04. If you find any error above, please use the form below to report. You may also like the post below:
