NAME¶
knife - Chef Server API client utility
SYNOPSIS¶
knife sub-command [
argument...]
(options)
DESCRIPTION¶
Knife is a command-line utility used to manage data on a Chef server through the
HTTP(S) API. Knife is organized into groups of subcommands centered around the
various object types in Chef. Each category of subcommand is documented in its
own manual page. Available topics are:
- •
- bootstrap
- •
- client
- •
- configure
- •
- cookbook-site
- •
- cookbook
- •
- data-bag
- •
- environment
- •
- exec
- •
- index
- •
- node
- •
- recipe
- •
- role
- •
- search
- •
- ssh
- •
- status
- •
- tag
-
If the knife manuals are in your
MANPATH, you can access help for the
above topics using
man knife-TOPIC; otherwise, you can view the
documentation using
knife help TOPIC.
OPTIONS¶
- -s, --server-url URL
- Chef Server URL, corresponds to Chef::Config
chef_server_url.
- -k, --key KEY
- API Client Key, corresponds to Chef::Config
client_key.
- -c, --config CONFIG
- The configuration file to use
- -E, --environment ENVIRONMENT
- Set the Chef environment
- -e, --editor EDITOR
- Set the editor to use for interactive commands
- -F, --format FORMAT
- Which format to use for output. See FORMATS for
details.
- -V, --verbose
- More verbose output. Use twice for max verbosity
- -d, --disable-editing
- Do not open EDITOR, just accept the data as is
- -u, --user USER
- API Client Username, corresponds to Chef::Config
node_name.
- -p, --print-after
- Show the data after a destructive operation
- -v, --version
- Show chef version
- -y, --yes
- Say yes to all prompts for confirmation
- --defaults
- Accept default values for all questions
- --[no-]color
- Use colored output. Color enabled by default.
- -h, --help
- Show the available options for a command.
SUB-COMMANDS¶
Sub-commands that operate on the basic Chef data types are structured as
NOUN
verb NOUN (options). For all data types, the following commands are
available:
- •
- create (create)
- •
- list and show (read)
- •
- edit (update)
- •
- delete (destroy)
-
Knife also includes commands that take actions other than displaying or
modifying data on the Chef Server, such as
knife-ssh(1).
CONFIGURATION¶
The knife configuration file is a Ruby DSL to set configuration parameters for
Knife´s
GENERAL OPTIONS. The default location for the config file
is
~/.chef/knife.rb. If managing multiple Chef repositories,
per-repository config files can be created. The file must be
.chef/knife.rb in the current directory of the repository.
If the config file exists, knife uses these settings for
GENERAL OPTIONS
defaults.
- •
- node_name: User or client identity (i.e.,
name) to use for authenticating requests to the Chef Server.
- •
- client_key: Private key file to authenticate to the
Chef server. Corresponds to the -k or --key option.
- •
- chef_server_url: URL of the Chef server. Corresponds
to the -s or --server-url option. This is requested from the
user when running this sub-command.
- •
- cache_type: The type of cache to use. Default is
BasicFile. This can be any type of Cache that moneta supports: BasicFile,
Berkeley, Couch, DataMapper, File, LMC, Memcache, Memory, MongoDB, Redis,
Rufus, S3, SDBM, Tyrant, Xattr, YAML.
- •
- cache_options: Specifies various options to use for
caching. These options are dependent on the cache_type.
- •
- validation_client_name: Specifies the name of the
client used to validate new clients.
- •
- validation_key: Specifies the private key file to
use when bootstrapping new hosts. See knife-client(1) for more information
about the validation client.
- •
- cookbook_copyright, cookbook_email,
cookbook_license, readme_format Used by knife cookbook
create sub-command to specify the copyright holder, maintainer email,
license and readme format (respectively) for new cookbooks. The copyright
holder is listed as the maintainer in the cookbook´s metadata and as
the Copyright in the comments of the default recipe. The maintainer email
is used in the cookbook metadata. The license determines what preamble to
put in the comment of the default recipe, and is listed as the license in
the cookbook metadata. Currently supported licenses are
"apachev2" and "none". Any other values will result in
an empty license in the metadata (needs to be filled in by the author),
and no comment preamble in the default recipe. Currently supported readme
formats are "md", "mkd", "txt", and
"rdoc". Any other value will result in an unformatted
README.
-
FILES¶
~/.chef/knife.rb
Ruby DSL configuration file for knife. See
CONFIGURATION.
The amount of content displayed and the output format are modified by the
--format option. If no alternate format is selected, the default is
summary.
Valid formats are:
- summary
- displays the node in a custom, summarized format
(default)
- text
- displays the node data in its entirety using the colorized
tree display
- json
- displays the node in JSON format
- yaml
- displays the node in YAML format
- pp
- displays the node using Ruby´s pretty printer.
For brevity, only the first character of the format is required, for example,
-Fj will produce JSON format output.
CHEF WORKFLOW¶
When working with Chef and Knife in the local repository, the recommended
workflow outline looks like:
- •
- Create repository. A skeleton sample is provided at
http://github.com/opscode/chef-repo/.
- •
- Configure knife, see CONFIGURATION.
- •
- Download cookbooks from the Opscode cookbooks site, see
COOKBOOK SITE SUB-COMMANDS.
- •
- Or, create new cookbooks, see cookbook create
sub-command.
- •
- Commit changes to the version control system. See your
tool´s documentation.
- •
- Upload cookbooks to the Chef Server, see COOKBOOK
SUB-COMMANDS.
- •
- Launch instances in the Cloud, OR provision new hosts; see
CLOUD COMPUTING SUB-COMMANDS and BOOTSTRAP
SUB-COMMANDS.
- •
- Watch Chef configure systems!
-
A note about git: Opscode and many folks in the Chef community use git, but it
is not required, except in the case of the
cookbook site vendor
sub-command, as it uses git directly. Version control is strongly recommended
though, and git fits with a lot of the workflow paradigms.
EXAMPLES¶
ENVIRONMENT¶
- EDITOR
- The text editor to use for editing data. The --editor
option takes precedence over this value, and the --disable-editing option
supresses data editing entirely.
SEE ALSO¶
chef-client(8) chef-server(8) shef(1)
knife-bootstrap(1) knife-client(1) knife-configure(1)
knife-cookbook-site(1) knife-cookbook(1)
knife-data-bag(1) knife-environment(1) knife-exec(1)
knife-index(1) knife-node(1) knife-recipe(1)
knife-role(1) knife-search(1) knife-ssh(1)
knife-tag(1)
Complete Chef documentation is available online:
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home/
JSON is JavaScript Object Notation
http://json.org/
SOLR is an open source search engine.
http://lucene.apache.org/solr/
git(1) is a version control system
http://git-scm.com/
This manual page was generated from Markdown with
ronn(1)
http://rtomayko.github.com/ronn/ronn.1.html
AUTHOR¶
Chef was written by Adam Jacob
adam@opscode.com of Opscode
(
http://www.opscode.com), with contributions from the community.
DOCUMENTATION¶
This manual page was written by Joshua Timberman
joshua@opscode.com.
LICENSE¶
Both Chef and this documentation are released under the terms of the Apache 2.0
License. You may view the license online:
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html On some systems, the
complete text of the Apache 2.0 License may be found in
/usr/share/common-licenses/Apache-2.0.
CHEF¶
Knife is distributed with Chef.
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home
