Chef-Solo Capistrano Bootstrap

by Mike Smullin [email protected]

Utilize Capistrano to automatically bootstrap any remote server for Chef-Solo via SSH using a single command.

Installation

• Git clone the blank Opscode Chef Cookbook Repository to your local machine

  git clone http://github.com/opscode/chef-repo

• Reset the git history

  rm -rf .git && git init .

• Make a special directory for containing all your dna.json files

  mkdir ./dna/ && touch ./dna/example-node.json

• Install Capistrano gem on the local machine either as a system gem or using bundler

  gem install capistrano

• Git clone or wget the Capfile into your cookbook repo root dir

  wget http://github.com/mikesmullin/Chef-Solo-Capistrano-Bootstrap/raw/master/Capfile

• Write your cookbook recipes and roles

Usage

• Execute the Capistrano Chef Bootstrap task

  cap chef:bootstrap <dna> <remote_host>

• Enjoy!

Example

cap chef:bootstrap <dna> <remote_host>

There are other commands you can find by cap -vT.

For eaxmple, during development, it is handy to use:

 cap chef:resolo <dna> <remote_host>

Which will push out your latest cookbook plus the dna.json and execute chef-solo on it.

When you are done, you can remove all traces of Chef with:

 cap chef:clean <dna> <remote_host>

Or if you want to nuke and pave to be sure old recipes are not causing problems:

 cap chef:clean_solo <dna> <remote_host>

If you are like me you enjoy provisioning a new Rackspace VPS and issuing this command to automatically create my users, groups, and copy ssh keys over for a passwordless ssh session going forward:

 cap chef:init_server <new_server_remote_ip>

Future goals

Is it possible that with the power of Ruby Expect, either Capistrano or Chef could be made better so that only one or the other is ultimately necessary?

Credits

Opscode Chef is originally by Opscode, Inc. see http://www.opscode.com/chef/

Capistrano is originally by Jamis Buck [email protected] see http://www.capify.org/