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Published on: 2019-08-01

Chef Server 12.x Install

Estimated time to read: 2 minutes

  1. Provision a Linux host
  2. Download the installer onto the host 
    cd /tmp
# wget https://packages.chef.io/files/stable/chef-server/12.18.14/el/7/chef-server-core-12.18.14-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
wget https://packages.chef.io/files/stable/chef-server/13.0.17/el/7/chef-server-core-13.0.17-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
  3. Install Chef server 
    # rpm -Uvh /tmp/chef-server-core-12.18.14-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
rpm -Uvh /tmp/chef-server-core-13.0.17-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
  4. Start all the Chef services 
    chef-server-ctl reconfigure
  5. Create an administrator account. This command will generate an RSA private key, which is the private key for that user. Specifying the --filename option allows you to specify the path 
    chef-server-ctl user-create USER_NAME FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME EMAIL 'PASSWORD' --filename FILE_NAME
  6. Create an organisation. This command will generate an RSA private key, which is the chef-validator key. 
    chef-server-ctl org-create short_name 'full_organization_name' --association_user user_name --filename ORGANIZATION-validator.pem
  7. Install the management console 
    chef-server-ctl install chef-manage
chef-server-ctl reconfigure
# chef-manage-ctl reconfigure
# Newer versions need the accept license flag in the command
chef-manage-ctl reconfigure --accept-license

  8. Logon to the Chef Manage console to verify things are working, using the administrator account details from step 5

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  9. Go to the Policy tab and the Clients menu item. Verify there is an item for ORGNAME-validator

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  10. Click on the Administration tab and under Organisations, verify there is an item for your organisation

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To add the Chef server to vRO's inventory, run the Add Chef Host workflow (Library > CHEF > Configuration). Fill in the form items and submit the workflow

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