[chef] Re: "Just" register a Chef node ?

["Tracy Phillips" < >]

Hi Jim,

If you are talking about installing and registering a node during preseed (or 
kickstart if you use RHEL), this is what we do to install and register 
chef-clients:

/bin/mkdir /etc/chef

/usr/bin/curl -L https://www.chef.io/chef/install.sh ;| bash

cat <<EOF > /etc/chef/client.rb
log_level               :info
log_location            "/var/log/chef/client.log"
ssl_verify_mode         :verify_none
validation_client_name  "example-company-validator"
validation_key          "/etc/chef/validation.pem"
client_key              "/etc/chef/client.pem"
chef_server_url         
"https://chef.example.com/organizations/example-company";
environment             "$ENVIRONMENT"
node_name               "$NODENAME"
json_attribs            "/etc/chef/firstboot.json"
file_cache_path         "/var/cache/chef"
file_backup_path        "/var/backups/chef"
pid_file                "/var/run/chef/client.pid"
Chef::Log::Formatter.show_time = true
EOF

cat <<'EOF' > /etc/chef/validation.pem
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----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-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
EOF

echo '{"run_list": ["role[bootstrap]"]}' > /etc/chef/firstboot.json

/bin/mkdir /var/log/chef

/usr/bin/chef-client -E "$ENVIRONMENT" -j /etc/chef/firstboot.json -L 
/var/log/chef/bootstrap.log


The $ENVIRONMENT & $NODENAME variable's are set during our preseed 
late_command scripts that we run "in-target".

Hope this helps.


--
Tracy Phillips

On Sunday, July 12, 2015 12:09 EDT, o haya 
<
 >
 wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Assuming the machine already:
>
> - Has the Chef client software installed
> - Has client.pem removed
> - Has client.rb with "node_name" being empty
>
> Does Chef provide a way/tool to remotely cause that machine to be 
> registered as a Chef node (initiated from a centralized machine)?
>
> This would be for both Windows-based and Linux (CENTOS-/Redhat-) based 
> machines.
>
> I know that we can do "knife bootstrap", but in our case, we don't want to 
> push the Chef client software to the node machines, but rather want to 
> pre-provision the node machines with the Chef client software and just be 
> able to cause the node machines to register as Chef nodes.  Something like 
> having a "knife bootstrap", but where the bootstrap process would not 
> include pushing the Chef client software to the node machine(s), would be 
> perfect.
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
>