[chef] managing chef server/webui/couchdb with chef?

[Jim Hopp < >]

Hi folks-

We're curious about how people are managing the chef server components 
(Chef Server API/webui, CouchDB, Solr Indexer, rabbitMQ, etc) and the 
machine all this is running on.

First, the machine: it seems feasible to assign a role to the node 
running the server, and to use that role to manage the prosaic stuff: 
packages, iptables, ntp, accounts, etc; all the stuff we're managing on 
the all the other nodes. Are there any gotcha's to just running 
chef-client on the chef server node?

Second, the chef server components: this seems much more complicated. Do 
people try to manage updates to the chef server components with chef 
itself, or do you simply use chef-solo to do the initial install and 
then manage updates by hand?

-Jim