How to connect Chef Server with Nodes on Linux

See Also:
1. Search chef Install and Configure a Chef Workstation on CentOS/RHEL 7/6
2. How to Install the Chef Server on CentOS/RHEL 5/6/7
3. What is Chef Automation Tool and It’s Features
4. Puppet vs. Chef vs. Ansible vs. SaltStack

Download the Starter Kit for WorkStation

Firstly we need to download the Starter Kit for a workstation. In the Starter Kit all the necessary configuration file store such as knife.rb and user.pem file. These configuration files help you to interact with the Chef Server. Simply download the Starter Kit and move it to Chef workstation.

Choose any of your organization and download the Starter Kit from the Chef Server to our Work Station.

After downloading this kit. Move it your Workstation and extract it. This provides you with a default Starter Kit to start up with your Chef server.

All the configuration files will store at .chef directory.

/opt/chef-repo/.chef

# ls

In knife.rb file all the inforation store regarding Chef Server, which help you to connect Chef Server with nodes.

# cat knife.rb

# See https://docs.getchef.com/config_rb_knife.html for more information on knife configuration options

current_dir = File.dirname(__FILE__)
log_level                :info
log_location             STDOUT
node_name                "ajain"
client_key               "#{current_dir}/ajain.pem"
chef_server_url          "https://chef.techoism.local/organizations/ajaindevops2017"
cookbook_path            ["#{current_dir}/../cookbooks"]

You can also configure knife.rb file using following command:

# knife configure --initial

Verify the Connection

Now run below command to verify the connection.

# knife client list

Note: After running above command If you get SSL error as below then you need to fetch the SSL certificate for our Chef server.

ERROR: SSL Validation failure connecting to host: chef.techoism.local - SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=error: certificate verify failed
ERROR: Could not establish a secure connection to the server.
Use `knife ssl check` to troubleshoot your SSL configuration.
If your Chef Server uses a self-signed certificate, you can use
`knife ssl fetch` to make knife trust the server's certificates.

Original Exception: OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError: SSL Error connecting to https://chef.techoism.local/organizations/ajaindevops2017/clients - SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=error: certificate verify failed

Run below command to fetch the SSL from Chef Server.

# knife ssl fetch

WARNING: Certificates from chef.techoism.local will be fetched and placed in your trusted_cert
directory (/opt/chef-repo/.chef/trusted_certs).

Knife has no means to verify these are the correct certificates. You should verify the authenticity of these certificates after downloading.

Adding certificate for chef_techoism_local in /opt/chef-repo/.chef/trusted_certs/chef_techoism_local.crt

SSL certificate will fetch on /opt/chef-repo/.chef/trusted_certs/ location on the server.

Install Chef Client on Node

Run below command to install the Chef Client on the Node.

# curl -L https://www.opscode.com/chef/install.sh | bash

Connect Nodes to a Chef Server

To connect the nodes will Chef Server is very simple. You just need to execute below bootstrape command to connect the node with Chef Server.

# knife bootstrap Server_IP -x User_Name -P Password --sudo -N Alias_Name

For example:

# knife bootstrap 172.20.10.12 -x root -P redhat --sudo -N NodeServer1

Creating new client for NodeServer1
Creating new node for NodeServer1
Connecting to 172.20.10.12
172.20.10.12 -----> Existing Chef installation detected
172.20.10.12 Starting the first Chef Client run...
172.20.10.12 Starting Chef Client, version 13.2.20
172.20.10.12 resolving cookbooks for run list: []
172.20.10.12 Synchronizing Cookbooks:
172.20.10.12 Installing Cookbook Gems:
172.20.10.12 Compiling Cookbooks...
172.20.10.12 [2017-08-13T13:38:17+05:30] WARN: Node NodeServer1 has an empty run list.
172.20.10.12 Converging 0 resources
172.20.10.12
172.20.10.12 Running handlers:
172.20.10.12 Running handlers complete
172.20.10.12 Chef Client finished, 0/0 resources updated in 04 seconds

Also, you can verify in the Chef Server web console.

In Next article, we will explain who to create a cookbook and run that cookbook on Chef Node.

Now you have successfully connected the Node with Chef Server.

Enjoy it!