[chef] Re: Re: chef-solo and different server configs

[Miquel Torres < >]

Well, your use cases do seem like a good fit for LittleChef
(https://github.com/tobami/littlechef)

Instead of updating the git repo on each server, with LittleChef every
user has a local checkout, and when reconfiguring a server the repo
gets synchronized.

Also, because it allows you to use node search and the
chef_environment value from the beginning, it makes it easier to later
move to a Chef Server configuration, as the recipes will be nearly
100% compatible.

Have a look, maybe it fits your usage model!


2011/11/20 Hector Castro 
<
 >:
> Hi Jesse,
>
> In my specific case the dependencies of chef-server make it a tough sell – 
> especially since I'm just starting to get Chef in the door and there isn't 
> a ton of adoption.  Absolutely no disrespect to Chef's capabilities 
> intended.
>
> --
> Hector
>
> On Nov 19, 2011, at 2:10 PM, Jesse Robbins wrote:
>
>> Out of curiosity, why use solo for this rather than hosted chef or 
>> chef-server?  I want to better understand your use cases.  (It seems like 
>> you may be doing a lot of work to do things that Chef exists to do and 
>> does well.)
>>
>> -Jesse
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Nov 19, 2011, at 8:58 AM, Hector Castro wrote:
>>
>>> Not using CloudInit yet.  Currently deploying to an internal VMware setup 
>>> with standard 11.10 server images.  My preseed file:
>>>
>>>      https://gist.github.com/1377459
>>>
>>> In my setup all of the nodes actually serve the same purpose.  I wrote a 
>>> little Capistrano task to make the remote chef-solo runs a little more 
>>> automated.  It handles synchronizing the repository and executing Chef.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Hector
>>>
>>> On Nov 19, 2011, at 11:45 AM, S Ahmed wrote:
>>>
>>>> With ubuntu, are you using cloudinit to preseed?
>>>>
>>>> But with this setup, you have to run a different chef-solo command for 
>>>> each node type correct?
>>>>
>>>> I guess to automate this a little further, you could have some sort of 
>>>> lookup system (maybe the hostname?) and look for a pattern, like if you 
>>>> hosts are prefixed with 'db' then it is a database node type or 'www' 
>>>> for a front end server.
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 11:40 AM, Hector Castro 
>>>> <
 >
>>>>  wrote:
>>>> I'd be interested to see other people's approaches to this as well.  
>>>> Right now I have chef-solo 2-4 server setup as well.
>>>>
>>>> First, I install Chef via APT at OS install time with preseeding.  On 
>>>> Ubuntu/Debian Chef looks for cookbooks and roles in /var/cache/chef by 
>>>> default.
>>>>
>>>> I have a Git repository housing everything that eventually gets sync'd 
>>>> to /var/cache/chef.  In config/ of that repository, I have one JSON file 
>>>> for each node.  In roles/ I have all of the shared role JSON files.  
>>>> Cookbooks live in cookbooks/ and site-cookbooks/.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Hector
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 18, 2011, at 4:14 PM, S Ahmed wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I'm planning on setting things up with the below setup.  This is for a 
>>>>> 2-4 server setup, looking for guidance/best practises for a chef-solo 
>>>>> repo.
>>>>>
>>>>> When using chef-solo with a setup like:
>>>>>
>>>>> /var/chef-solo/
>>>>> /var/chef-solo/cookbooks
>>>>>
>>>>> If I have web servers, a db server, etc. to configure, I guess it is 
>>>>> just a matter of having the necessary recipies in the cookbook and then 
>>>>> creating a seperate .json file like web1.json and db1.json correct?
>>>>>
>>>>> I'll save this in a git repo, so that if I need to update anything I 
>>>>> can then run a command than will update the repo's of all my servers, 
>>>>> and then run the chef-solo command.
>>>>>
>>>>> Running chef with:
>>>>>
>>>>> chef-solo -c ~/solo.rb -j ~/web1.json
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>