[chef] Re: Re: Re: remote Node concept?

[dreamcat four < >]

Write a resource / provider to run capistrano actions from within
chef. Your custom chef resources would hide the sequence of ssh
actions which would otherwise be your remote script. Those will be
specifically to those network device(s) such as routers etc. A chef
resource can be put into "cookbook/libraries/resource.rb".

Im not sure how to call capistrano from chef (never needed to), but it
sounds like thats what you are looking for. Then its possible to write
the resource for your chef recipes. As already was pointed out, the
easiest way to run a chef recipe is with chef-solo.

On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Patrick Debois 
<
 >
 wrote:
> Hi Trotter, Lee,
>
> thanks for the help.(spatula does look interesting!)
>
> Let me try to clarify: I'm not looking for a way to jumpstart a chef client.
> I'm looking for a way to manage a node 'agent-less' over ssh. I understand
> this not in Chef yet. I personally think this would bring added value, (at
> least to me ;-) And I would be willing to spent some time on this.
>
> I'm trying to figure out if it makes to integrate this in Chef code's or
> not.
>
> Patrick
>
> On 12/04/2010 15:12, Trotter Cashion wrote:
>
> Hey Patrick,
> I've got a little ruby gem I've written called spatula that you can install
> using "gem install spatula". It'll both prepare a remote server by
> installing all the necessary dependencies for chef-solo to run and ssh into
> a server and run chef solo. So... maybe it'll fit your needs :-)
> Here's a little example of usage:
> $ gem install spatula
> $ cd your-chef-repo
> $ spatula prepare some.remote.box
> $ spatula cook some.remote.box node-config-name
> That'll prepare the box, rsync your chef-repo over, and then run chef-solo
> on the box. Let me know if you have any problems.
> - Trotter
> On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 8:17 AM, Patrick Debois 
> <
 >
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi list,
>>
>> I'm rather new to Chef usage. So please forgive for ignorant questions,
>> remarks ;-)
>>
>> While looking at the functionality in Chef, I'm wondering if there exists
>> a way to manage nodes over ssh.
>> In the past I've written my own scripts (not recipes obviously) that can
>> be either executed locally or remote (over ssh).
>>
>> If I understand it correctly, in Chef currently every node has to be a
>> chef-server or chef-client installed. What I'm looking for is a kind of
>> agent-less approach, where recipes get applied over ssh. Hence the idea of 
>> a
>> remote Node.
>>
>> I understand that recipes can be written in ruby, so making them execute
>> remote will be hard if no ruby is installed. Still for the script or
>> commandline execution, file copying and so on, these can be executed over
>> ssh (if they execute commandline equivalents) using plain shell commands.
>> Recipes could be marked as remote if all commands can be executed remote or
>> not.
>>
>> Another side effect of this capability, is that any device that has ssh
>> and a commandline API (such as vmware, xen, routers, switches, firewalls)
>> can be integrated in Chef without them requiring ruby or anything else.  It
>> would make the tool pass better security guys because it doesn't require 
>> any
>> additional software on the devices.
>>
>> My first thought would be to make chef-solo execute command over an ssh.
>>
>> What do you guys think of this idea? Wrong assumptions? Worth
>> investigating time in to integrate it in Chef? Or any other ways to tackle
>> this?
>>
>> Thanks for any feedback ,
>>
>> Patrick
>
>
>