Using Knife

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Knife

knife is a command-line tool that provides an interface between a local chef-repo and the Chef server. knife helps users to manage:

  • Nodes
  • Cookbooks and recipes
  • Roles, Environments, and Data Bags
  • Resources within various cloud environments
  • The installation of the chef-client onto nodes
  • Searching of indexed data on the Chef server

Set the Text Editor

Some knife commands, such as knife data bag edit, require that information be edited as JSON data using a text editor. For example, the following command:

$ knife data bag edit admins admin_name

will open up the text editor with data similar to:

{
  "id": "admin_name"
}

Changes to that file can then be made:

{
  "id": "Justin C."
  "description": "I am passing the time by letting time pass over me ..."
}

The type of text editor that is used by knife can be configured by adding an entry to your config.rb file, or by setting an EDITOR environment variable. For example, to configure knife to open the vim text editor, add the following to your config.rb file:

knife[:editor] = "/usr/bin/vim"

When a Microsoft Windows file path is enclosed in a double-quoted string (” “), the same backslash character (\) that is used to define the file path separator is also used in Ruby to define an escape character. The config.rb file is a Ruby file; therefore, file path separators must be escaped. In addition, spaces in the file path must be replaced with ~1 so that the length of each section within the file path is not more than 8 characters. For example, if EditPad Pro is the text editor of choice and is located at the following path:

C:\\Program Files (x86)\EditPad Pro\EditPad.exe

the setting in the config.rb file would be similar to:

knife[:editor] = "C:\\Progra~1\\EditPa~1\\EditPad.exe"

One approach to working around the double- vs. single-quote issue is to put the single-quotes outside of the double-quotes. For example, for Notepad++:

knife[:editor] = '"C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" -nosession -multiInst'

for Sublime Text:

knife[:editor] = '"C:\Program Files\Sublime Text 2\sublime_text.exe" --wait'

for TextPad:

knife[:editor] = '"C:\Program Files (x86)\TextPad 7\TextPad.exe"'

and for vim:

knife[:editor] = '"C:\Program Files (x86)\vim\vim74\gvim.exe"'

Quotes, Windows

When running knife in Microsoft Windows, a string may be interpreted as a wildcard pattern when quotes are not present in the command. The number of quotes to use depends on the shell from which the command is being run.

When running knife from the command prompt, a string should be surrounded by single quotes (' '). For example:

$ knife node run_list set test-node 'recipe[iptables]'

When running knife from Windows PowerShell, a string should be surrounded by triple single quotes (''' '''). For example:

$ knife node run_list set test-node '''recipe[iptables]'''

Import-Module chef

The chef-client version 12.4 release adds an optional feature to the Microsoft Installer Package (MSI) for Chef. This feature enables the ability to pass quoted strings from the Windows PowerShell command line without the need for triple single quotes (''' '''). This feature installs a Windows PowerShell module (typically in C:\opscode\chef\modules) that is also appended to the PSModulePath environment variable. This feature is not enabled by default. To activate this feature, run the following command from within Windows PowerShell:

$ Import-Module chef

or add Import-Module chef to the profile for Windows PowerShell located at:

~\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

This module exports cmdlets that have the same name as the command-line tools—chef-client, knife, chef-apply—that are built into Chef.

For example:

$ knife exec -E 'puts ARGV' """&s0meth1ng"""

is now:

$ knife exec -E 'puts ARGV' '&s0meth1ng'

and:

$ knife node run_list set test-node '''role[ssssssomething]'''

is now:

$ knife node run_list set test-node 'role[ssssssomething]'

To remove this feature, run the following command from within Windows PowerShell:

$ Remove-Module chef

Ampersands, Windows

When running knife in Microsoft Windows, an ampersand (&) is a special character and must be protected by quotes when it appears in a command. The number of quotes to use depends on the shell from which the command is being run.

When running knife from the command prompt, an ampersand should be surrounded by quotes ("&"). For example:

$ knife bootstrap windows winrm -P "&s0meth1ng"

When running knife from Windows PowerShell, an ampersand should be surrounded by triple quotes ("""&"""). For example:

$ knife bootstrap windows winrm -P """&s0meth1ng"""

knife bootstrap

A node is any physical, virtual, or cloud machine that is configured to be maintained by a chef-client. In order to bootstrap a node, you will first need a working installation of the Chef software package. A bootstrap is a process that installs the chef-client on a target system so that it can run as a chef-client and communicate with a Chef server. There are two ways to do this:

Use the knife bootstrap subcommand to run a bootstrap operation that installs the chef-client on the target system. The bootstrap operation must specify the IP address or FQDN of the target system.

Note

To bootstrap the chef-client on Microsoft Windows machines, the knife-windows plugins is required, which includes the necessary bootstrap scripts that are used to do the actual installation.

Syntax

This subcommand has the following syntax:

$ knife bootstrap FQDN_or_IP_ADDRESS (options)

Options

Note

Review the list of common options available to this (and all) knife subcommands and plugins.

This subcommand has the following options:

-A, --forward-agent
Enable SSH agent forwarding.
--bootstrap-curl-options OPTIONS
Arbitrary options to be added to the bootstrap command when using cURL. This option may not be used in the same command with --bootstrap-install-command.
--bootstrap-install-command COMMAND
Execute a custom installation command sequence for the chef-client. This option may not be used in the same command with --bootstrap-curl-options or --bootstrap-wget-options.
--bootstrap-no-proxy NO_PROXY_URL_or_IP

A URL or IP address that specifies a location that should not be proxied.

Note

This option is used internally by Chef to help verify bootstrap operations during testing and should never be used during an actual bootstrap operation.

--bootstrap-preinstall-command COMMANDS
Custom commands to run before installing chef-client
--bootstrap-proxy-pass PROXY_PASS
The proxy authentication password for the node being bootstrapped
--bootstrap-proxy-user PROXY_USER
The proxy authentication username for the node being bootstrapped
--bootstrap-proxy PROXY_URL
The proxy server for the node that is the target of a bootstrap operation.
--bootstrap-vault-file VAULT_FILE
The path to a JSON file that contains a list of vaults and items to be updated.
--bootstrap-vault-item VAULT_ITEM
A single vault and item to update as vault:item.
--bootstrap-vault-json VAULT_JSON

A JSON string that contains a list of vaults and items to be updated.

For example:

--bootstrap-vault-json '{ "vault1": ["item1", "item2"], "vault2": "item2" }'
--bootstrap-version VERSION
The version of the chef-client to install.
--bootstrap-wget-options OPTIONS
Arbitrary options to be added to the bootstrap command when using GNU Wget. This option may not be used in the same command with --bootstrap-install-command.
-E ENVIRONMENT, --environment ENVIRONMENT
The name of the environment. When this option is added to a command, the command will run only against the named environment.
-G GATEWAY, --ssh-gateway GATEWAY
The SSH tunnel or gateway that is used to run a bootstrap action on a machine that is not accessible from the workstation.
--hint HINT_NAME[=HINT_FILE]

An Ohai hint to be set on the target node.

Ohai hints are used to tell Ohai something about the system that it is running on that it would not be able to discover itself. An Ohai hint exists if a JSON file exists in the hint directory with the same name as the hint. For example, calling hint?('antarctica') in an Ohai plugin would return an empty hash if the file antarctica.json existed in the hints directory, and return nil if the file does not exist.

If the hint file contains JSON content, it will be returned as a hash from the call to hint?.

{
  "snow": true,
  "penguins": "many"
}

antarctica_hint = hint?('antarctica')
if antarctica_hint['snow']
  "There are #{antarctica_hint['penguins']} penguins here."
else
  'There is no snow here, and penguins like snow.'
end

Hint files are located in the /etc/chef/ohai/hints/ directory by default. Use the Ohai.config[:hints_path] setting in the client.rb file to customize this location.

HINT_FILE is the name of the JSON file. HINT_NAME is the name of a hint in a JSON file. Use multiple --hint options to specify multiple hints.

-i IDENTITY_FILE, --ssh-identity-file IDENTITY_FILE
The SSH identity file used for authentication. Key-based authentication is recommended.
-j JSON_ATTRIBS, --json-attributes JSON_ATTRIBS
A JSON string that is added to the first run of a chef-client.
--json-attribute-file FILE
A JSON file to be added to the first run of chef-client.
-N NAME, --node-name NAME

The name of the node.

Note

This option is required for a validatorless bootstrap.

--[no-]fips
Allows OpenSSL to enforce FIPS-validated security during the chef-client run.
--[no-]host-key-verify
Use --no-host-key-verify to disable host key verification. Default setting: --host-key-verify.
--[no-]node-verify-api-cert
Verify the SSL certificate on the Chef server. When true, the chef-client always verifies the SSL certificate. When false, the chef-client uses the value of ssl_verify_mode to determine if the SSL certificate requires verification. If this option is not specified, the setting for verify_api_cert in the configuration file is applied.
--node-ssl-verify-mode MODE

Set the verify mode for HTTPS requests. Options: none or peer.

Use none to do no validation of SSL certificates.

Use peer to do validation of all SSL certificates, including the Chef server connections, S3 connections, and any HTTPS remote_file resource URLs used in the chef-client run. This is the recommended setting.

-p PORT, --ssh-port PORT
The SSH port.
-P PASSWORD, --ssh-password PASSWORD
The SSH password. This can be used to pass the password directly on the command line. If this option is not specified (and a password is required) knife prompts for the password.
--prerelease
Install pre-release gems.
-r RUN_LIST, --run-list RUN_LIST
A comma-separated list of roles and/or recipes to be applied.
--secret SECRET
The encryption key that is used for values contained within a data bag item.
--secret-file FILE
The path to the file that contains the encryption key.
--sudo
Execute a bootstrap operation with sudo.
--sudo-preserve-home
Use to preserve the non-root user’s HOME environment.
-t TEMPLATE, --bootstrap-template TEMPLATE
The bootstrap template to use. This may be the name of a bootstrap template—chef-full, for example—or it may be the full path to an Embedded Ruby (ERB) template that defines a custom bootstrap. Default value: chef-full, which installs the chef-client using the Chef installer on all supported platforms.
--use-sudo-password
Perform a bootstrap operation with sudo; specify the password with the -P (or --ssh-password) option.
-V -V
Run the initial chef-client run at the debug log-level (e.g. chef-client -l debug).
-V -V -V
Run the initial chef-client run at the trace log-level (e.g. chef-client -l trace). This was added in Chef Client 14.
-x USERNAME, --ssh-user USERNAME
The SSH user name.

Note

See config.rb for more information about how to add certain knife options as settings in the config.rb file.