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Bootstrap nodes with Knife

Bootstrapping installs Chef Infra Client on a target system and configures it to communicate with a Chef Infra Server.

Prerequisites

Before bootstrapping nodes:

Before bootstrapping Windows nodes with WinRM:

  • Enable and configure Windows Remote Management (WinRM):

    winrm quickconfig -q

  • Set the execution policy to allow remote script execution:

    Enable-PSRemoting -Force

  • Configure Windows Firewall to allow WinRM traffic on port 5985 (HTTP) or 5986 (HTTPS)

Bootstrap Chef Infra Client 19 RC3 on Linux

To bootstrap Chef Infra Client 19 RC3 on a Linux node, run the following command:

knife bootstrap <IP_ADDRESS> \
  -U <USERNAME> \
  -p <PASSWORD> \
  -N <NODE_NAME> \
  --sudo \
  --bootstrap-url "https://chef-hab-migration-tool-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Release-Candidate-3/workstation/install.sh?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAW4FPVFT6PA6EXTHQ&Signature=IDDVNrOTeKZnc%2Bxa9611MkK%2BZ2o%3D&Expires=1780533412"

Replace the following:

  • <IP_ADDRESS> with the node’s IP address
  • <USERNAME> with the SSH username
  • <PASSWORD> with the SSH password
  • <NODE_NAME> with a unique node name

The --bootstrap-url parameter installs a prerelease version of Chef Infra Client that’s distributed through pre-signed URLs.

Bootstrap Chef Infra Client 19 RC3 on Windows

To bootstrap Chef Infra Client 19 RC3 on a Windows node, run the following command:

knife bootstrap <IP_ADDRESS> \
  -o winrm \
  -U <USERNAME> \
  -P <PASSWORD> \
  -N <NODE_NAME> \
  --winrm-port <PORT_NUMBER> \
  --bootstrap-url "https://chef-hab-migration-tool-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Release-Candidate-3/workstation/install.ps1?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAW4FPVFT6PA6EXTHQ&Signature=4hQ0Ve5Rcd63oHZyTI7r%2FX9KltA%3D&Expires=1780533421"

Replace the following:

  • <IP_ADDRESS> with the IP address of the Windows node
  • <USERNAME> with the WinRM username
  • <PASSWORD> with the WinRM password
  • <NODE_NAME> with the Chef node name
  • <PORT_NUMBER> with the WinRM communication port (default: 5985)

To use HTTPS for WinRM on port 5986, use the --winrm-ssl option.

Bootstrap Chef Infra Client 18

To bootstrap Chef Infra Client 18.x, run the following command:

knife bootstrap <IP_ADDRESS> \
  -U <USERNAME> \
  -p <PASSWORD> \
  -N <NODE_NAME> \
  --sudo \
  --bootstrap-product chef

Replace the following:

  • <IP_ADDRESS> with the node’s IP address
  • <USERNAME> with the SSH username
  • <PASSWORD> with the SSH password
  • <NODE_NAME> with a unique node name

The --bootstrap-product chef option directs Knife to use Chef Infra Client 18.x from standard download channels.

Bootstrap an AWS EC2 instance

The Knife EC2 plugin integrates with AWS EC2 to create and provision EC2 instances.

To create an EC2 instance and bootstrap Chef Infra Client, run the following command:

knife ec2 server create \
  --sudo \
  -I <AMI_ID> \
  --ssh-key <SSH_KEY_NAME> \
  -f <INSTANCE_TYPE> \
  -N <NODE_NAME> \
  -U <SSH_USERNAME> \
  --ssh-identity-file ~/.ssh/<SSH_KEY_FILE> \
  -g <SECURITY_GROUP_ID> \
  --region <AWS_REGION> \
  --subnet <SUBNET_ID> \
  --aws-tag <TAG_KEY>=<TAG_VALUE>
  --bootstrap-url "<BOOTSTRAP_URL>"

Replace the following:

  • <AMI_ID> with the Amazon Machine Image ID for the EC2 instance, for example, ami-0c02fb55956c7d316

  • <SSH_KEY_NAME> with the Name of your AWS SSH key pair

  • <INSTANCE_TYPE> with the Instance type specification, for example, t3.medium, m5.xlarge, or c5.4xlarge

  • <NODE_NAME> with the Chef Infra node name for identification within Chef Infra Server

  • <SSH_USERNAME> with the SSH username for the selected AMI, for example, ec2-user, ubuntu, or centos

  • <SSH_KEY_FILE> with the Path to SSH private key for authentication

  • <SECURITY_GROUP_ID> with the Security group ID for network access control, for example, sg-0a1b2c3d4e5f67890

  • <AWS_REGION> with the AWS region for instance deployment, for example, us-east-1 or eu-west-1

  • <SUBNET_ID> with the VPC subnet ID for network placement, for example, subnet-0123456789abcdef0

  • <TAG_KEY>=<TAG_VALUE> with the Resource tags for AWS compliance and management (repeatable). For example, environment=production

  • <BOOTSTRAP_URL> with the RC3 installation script URL:

    For Windows nodes:

    https://chef-hab-migration-tool-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Release-Candidate-3/workstation/install.ps1?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAW4FPVFT6PA6EXTHQ&Signature=4hQ0Ve5Rcd63oHZyTI7r%2FX9KltA%3D&Expires=1780533421

    For Linux nodes:

    https://chef-hab-migration-tool-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Release-Candidate-3/workstation/install.sh?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAW4FPVFT6PA6EXTHQ&Signature=IDDVNrOTeKZnc%2Bxa9611MkK%2BZ2o%3D&Expires=1780533412

Bootstrap a GCP Compute Engine instance

The knife-google plugin integrates with GCP Compute Engine to create and provision GCP instances.

To create a GCP instance and bootstrap Chef Infra Client:

knife google server create <INSTANCE_NAME> \
  --gce-project <GCP_PROJECT_ID> \
  --gce-zone <GCP_ZONE> \
  --gce-machine-type <MACHINE_TYPE> \
  --gce-image <IMAGE_NAME> \
  --gce-image-project <IMAGE_PROJECT> \
  --image-os-type <OPERATING_SYSTEM> \
  --connection-user <SSH_USERNAME> \
  --ssh-identity-file ~/.ssh/<SSH_KEY_FILE> \
  --connection-port 22 \
  --connection-protocol <PROTOCOL> \
  --gce-network <VPC_NETWORK> \
  --gce-subnet <SUBNET_NAME> \
  --gce-tags <TAG1>,<TAG2>,<TAG3> \
  --bootstrap-url "<BOOTSTRAP_URL>"

Replace the following:

  • <INSTANCE_NAME> with the Name for the GCP instance

  • <GCP_PROJECT_ID> with the Google Cloud project ID

  • <GCP_ZONE> with the GCP availability zone, for example, us-central1-a or europe-west1-b

  • <MACHINE_TYPE> with the Instance machine type, for example, e2-standard-4 or n1-highmem-8

  • <IMAGE_NAME> with the Operating system image name, for example, ubuntu-2204-jammy-v20251102

  • <IMAGE_PROJECT> with the Source project containing the OS image, for example, ubuntu-os-cloud or centos-cloud

  • <OPERATING_SYSTEM> with the Operating system type: linux or windows

  • <SSH_USERNAME> with the SSH username

  • <SSH_KEY_FILE> with the Filename of your SSH private key

  • <PROTOCOL> with the Communication protocol: ssh or winrm

  • <VPC_NETWORK> with the VPC network name

  • <SUBNET_NAME> with the Subnet name within the VPC

  • <TAG1>,<TAG2>,<TAG3> with the Comma-separated instance tags for organization and firewall rules (optional)

  • <BOOTSTRAP_URL> with the Installation script URL:

    For Windows nodes:

    https://chef-hab-migration-tool-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Release-Candidate-3/workstation/install.ps1?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAW4FPVFT6PA6EXTHQ&Signature=4hQ0Ve5Rcd63oHZyTI7r%2FX9KltA%3D&Expires=1780533421

    For Linux nodes:

    https://chef-hab-migration-tool-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Release-Candidate-3/workstation/install.sh?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAW4FPVFT6PA6EXTHQ&Signature=IDDVNrOTeKZnc%2Bxa9611MkK%2BZ2o%3D&Expires=1780533412

Bootstrap Chef Infra Client 19 in an air-gapped environment

You can bootstrap Chef Infra Client 19 in an air-gapped environment. The following are example steps for modifying the install scripts in an air-gapped environment.

  1. On an internet-connected computer, download the Chef Infra Client 19 installation scripts and save them to an internal repository that’s accessible to your target nodes. For example:

    wget https://chef-hab-migration-tool-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Release-Candidate-3/workstation/install.sh \
  -O /var/www/internal-repo/chef/rc3/install.sh

wget https://chef-hab-migration-tool-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Release-Candidate-3/workstation/install.ps1 \
  -O /var/www/internal-repo/chef/rc3/install.ps1

  2. Modify the installation scripts to reference your internal package locations. For example:

    sed -i 's|https://chef-hab-migration-tool-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com|https://internal-repo.example.com|g' \
  /var/www/internal-repo/chef/rc3/install.sh

sed -i 's|https://chef-hab-migration-tool-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com|https://internal-repo.example.com|g' \
  /var/www/internal-repo/chef/rc3/install.ps1

  3. Bootstrap Chef Infra Client 19 using the --bootstrap-url parameter to point to your internal resources:

    knife bootstrap <IP_ADDRESS> \
  -U <USERNAME> \
  -p <PASSWORD> \
  -N <NODE_NAME> \
  --sudo \
  --bootstrap-url "https://internal-repo.example.com/chef/rc3/install.sh"

More information

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