Chef Server Populator

Creates orgs, clients, and admin users and installs provided public keys. Simplifies managing and recreating Chef Server nodes. Provides backup and restore recipes for complete Chef Server recovery.

New Chef 12 Support

Chef 12 is supported in version 1.0 and above. If you need Chef 11 support, please pin your environment to version 0.4.0.

Usage

When bootstrapping with the chef-server cookbook and chef-solo:

• Download and unpack chef-server, chef-server-ingredient, packagecloud, and chef-server-populator cookbooks
• Upload public keys to be used by users, org-validator, and clients (optionally)
• Create json for organization, user, and (optionally) client(s)
• Run chef-solo

See the default[:chef_server_populator][:solo_org] and default[:chef_server_populator][:solo_org_user] attribute hashes in attributes/default.rb for the required attribute structure.

When converging with chef-client:

• Create data bag to hold data bag items with user, org, and client information
• Create data bag items with user, org, and client information
• Set data bag related attributes

Applicable attributes:

• node[:chef_server_populator][:databag] - name of the data bag

Structure of the data bag item:

User:

{
  "id": "user_name",
  "chef_server": {
    "full_name": "User Name",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "client_key": "public key contents",
    "type": [
      "user"
    ],
    "orgs": {
      "organization": {
        "enabled": true,
        "admin": true
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: While users can belong to multiple organizations, and the above hash structure allows you to define multiple associations, the chef-server-populator currently only supports the first organization that is defined in the data bag.

Client:

{
  "id": "client_name",
  "chef_server": {
    "client_key": "public key contents",
    "type": [
      "client"
    ],
    "orgs": [ "organization" ]
   }
}

Note: If no organization is specified for a client, it will be added to the default organization. The client enabled and admin settings can be set at the top level of the chef_server hash or in and orgs hash as in the User example.

Org:

{
  "id": "org_name",
  "chef_server": {
    "full_name": "Organization Name",
    "client_key": "public key contents",
    "type": [
      "org"
    ],
    "enabled": true
  }
}

Note: Creating the org will create a client called <org>-validator which uses the public key specified when creating the org. In addition, there is currently a bug in Chef server 12.1 which means only the first word in the full name will be used, as the option is not parsed correctly

Restoring from a backup:

• Set path to restore file with node[:chef_server_populator][:restore][:file]
• The restore recipe is run if a restore file is set
• The restore file can be remote or local

When enabling backups:

• Include chef-server-populator::restore recipe
• Set backup cron interval with node[:chef_server_populator][:schedule]
• Optionally set a remote storage location with node[:chef_server_populator][:backup][:remote][:connection]
• Backups include both a pg_dump of the entire chef database and a tarball of the Chef data directory

Public Key Format

The format of the public key specified with the json object needs to be a single line string with new lines represented with the \n character

You can use one of the below commands to convert your public key file into the correct string format (credit to the certificates cookbook for these)

cat <filename> | sed s/$/\\\\n/ | tr -d '\n'
-OR-
/usr/bin/env ruby -e 'p ARGF.read' <filename>
-OR-
perl -pe 's!(\x0d)?\x0a!\\n!g' <filename>

If you need to obtain the public key string for your private key first, then run the following on the .pem file containing the private key

openssl rsa -in <path_to_keyfile>.pem -pubout

Extras

Need to use the IP address of the node for a bit, or another name instead of having node[:fqdn]?

• node[:chef_server_populator][:servername_override]

Keep chef server configured via chef client:

• node[:chef_server_populator][:chef_server]

If the hash is non-empty, it will write the chef-server dna.json and trigger a reconfigure when ever the attributes are updated.

Known Issues

• As mentioned above, user and client data bag items currently only support the first organization provided. Multi-org support is forthcoming.

Examples

Take a look in the examples directory for basic bootstrap templates that will build a new erchef server, using existing keys and client, and register itself, or restore an existing chef server from a backup.

Info

• Repository: https://github.com/hw-cookbooks/chef-server-populator
• IRC: Freenode @ #heavywater