Manage Reports

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Note

This documentation is meant to support existing Chef customers using Reporting.

Are you a new Chef customer, or looking to gain better insight into your fleet? Take advantage of Chef Automate. You’ll get a graphical interface and query language that gives you insight into operational, compliance, and workflow events. You can try out Chef Automate here.

Note

This topic is about using the Chef management console to manage reports.

Use Reporting to keep track of what happens during the execution of chef-client runs across all of the machines that are under management by Chef. Reports can be generated for the entire organization and they can be generated for specific nodes.

Reporting data is collected during the chef-client run and the results are posted to the Chef server at the end of the chef-client run at the same time the node object is uploaded to the Chef server.

Configure Reports

Reports can be built based on environments, by report status, by date range, and by organization.

Filter by Environment

To filter report histories by environment:

  1. Open the Chef management console.

  2. Click Reports.

  3. Click Run History.

  4. From the Filter by environment drop-down, select All Environments, _default, or any custom environment:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_history_filter_by_environment.png

Filter by Status

To filter report histories by chef-client run status:

  1. Open the Chef management console.

  2. Click Reports.

  3. Click Run History.

  4. From the Filter by status drop-down, select All, Success, Failure, or Started:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_history_filter_by_status.png

Show Runs by Date Range

To show a specific set of chef-client runs:

  1. Open the Chef management console.

  2. Click Reports.

  3. Click Dashboard.

  4. Select the range for which runs will be shown: all runs that occurred in the last 3 months, the last month, the last week, the last twenty-four hours, after a specific date, or between two specific dates:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_dashboard_show_runs.png

Show Runs for Org

To show a specific set of chef-client run histories:

  1. Open the Chef management console.
  2. Click Reports.
  3. Click Run History.
  4. Select the range for which run histories will be shown: all runs that occurred in the last 3 months, the last month, the last week, the last twenty-four hours, after a specific date, or between two specific dates.

View Reports

The following report types are available:

Dashboard

To view the reports dashboard:

  1. Open the Chef management console.
  2. Click Reports.
  3. Click Dashboard.

Error Log

To view chef-client run error logs:

  1. Open the Chef management console.

  2. Click Reports.

  3. Click Run History.

  4. Select the range of chef-client runs to show, the correct environment, and correct status.

  5. Select a chef-client run.

  6. Select the Error Log tab:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_history_view_error_log.png

History

To report histories:

  1. Open the Chef management console.
  2. Click Reports.
  3. Click Run History.

Run Counts

To view chef-client runs still running:

  1. Open the Chef management console.

  2. Click Reports.

  3. Click Dashboard.

  4. The chef-client runs that are still running are shown under the Run Counts header:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_dashboard_view_run_counts.png

    Select (or de-select) success, failure, and aborted to filter the view to only specific run outcomes:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_dashboard_view_dashboard_common_outcomes.png

Run Details

To view chef-client details:

  1. Open the Chef management console.

  2. Click Reports.

  3. Click Run History.

  4. Select the range of chef-client runs to show, the correct environment, and correct status.

  5. Select a chef-client run.

  6. Select the Details tab:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_history_view_details.png

    where:

    Setting Description
    Step The order in which resources were executed during the chef-client run.
    Type The type of resource. /resource.html#resources
    Name A string that describes the action taken. For example, a log entry or the name of the service that is enabled.
    Action The action taken by the resource type.
    Duration The amount of time required to complete the action.
    Diff The difference between the current state and the previous state. This setting is available for files managed by the cookbook_file, file, remote_file, and template resources.
    Parameters Opens the Run Details dialog box, which lists all of the parameters on the node that were changed during the chef-client run.

Run Durations

To view chef-client runs with errors:

  1. Open the Chef management console.

  2. Click Reports.

  3. Click Dashboard.

  4. The chef-client runs with errors are shown under the Run Durations header:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_dashboard_view_run_durations.png

    Hover over duration values to see the number of associated runs:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_dashboard_view_run_durations_hover.png

    Select (or de-select) success, failure, and aborted to filter the view to only specific run outcomes:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_dashboard_view_dashboard_common_outcomes.png

Run-specific Details

To view chef-client run-specific details:

  1. Open the Chef management console.

  2. Click Reports.

  3. Click Run History.

  4. Select the range of chef-client runs to show, the correct environment, and correct status.

  5. Select a chef-client run.

  6. Select the Details tab.

  7. For a specific step, from the Parameters column, click the view icon to open the Run Details dialog box:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_history_view_details_run_details.png

    where:

    Setting Description
    Parameters The parameters that were set by the resource during the chef-client run.
    Initial State The state of the parameter at the start of the chef-client run.
    Final State The state of the parameter at the end of the chef-client run.

Run-list

To view chef-client run-list details:

  1. Open the Chef management console.

  2. Click Reports.

  3. Click Run History.

  4. Select the range of chef-client runs to show, the correct environment, and correct status.

  5. Select a chef-client run.

  6. Select the Run List tab:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_history_view_run_list.png

Runs Summary

To view the chef-client runs summary:

  1. Open the Chef management console.

  2. Click Reports.

  3. Click Dashboard.

  4. The chef-client runs summaries are shown under the Runs Summary header:

    _images/step_manage_webui_reports_dashboard_view_run_summary.png