Installing Chef on DETER

There are 3 components to Chef: a server, a set of clients, and a set of workstations. The server is, well, the server - it handles requests from clients and workstations; it is the central organizing component of the system. The workstation is where Chef code is written. Think of it as a development or OPs workstation. The client(s) are the nodes that are configured/controlled. All three components need to run Chef sofware: the server runs chef server suite, the clients run chef-client, and the workstation runs git and a suite of chef scripts around git called knife that interact with a chef (git) repository and a chef server.

The workflow for a running system is recipes, roles, and chef code is written on a workstation and added to a chef repository. The person on the workstation then pushes updates to the chef server. The client then contacts the chef server for updates, gets the updates, and applies them locally. Knife, on a workstation, can also install Chef-client (and other packages) directly on a client. If this is done the flow becomes: 1) workstation pushes update to the server, 2) the workstation installs Chef on a client and gives it an initial role or list of recipes, 3) the newly installed chef-client then contacts the chef server and downloads the recipes and executes them, configuring the client node.

• Chef Server
• Chef Workstation
• Chef Client(s)

Running Chef on DETER

Note: the recipes here use a mysql library to talk directly to the testbed database. On the current DETER testbed though, the database is setup to only allow local access from boss. The TMCD/TMCC library is used to bridge the gap between test nodes and the database on boss. The recipes can be rewritten to use the TMCD interface but this was an exercise in trying to cut out Emulab code, a decision was made to talk directly to the database using standard database APIs. In short, the steps below cannot be run on DETER unless the database on boss is reconfigured to allow external access. Instructions are given for that below though.

• Getting recipes
• Pushing recipes
• Running recipes