Provision a AWS ec2 vm using chef | Step by Step Guide | AWS ec2 vm Tutorial

Provision a AWS ec2 vm using chef

Step 1: Install chefdk

Step 2: Setup AWS Credentails

Step X: Setup your knife config

Step X: Make sure following is set and exported in env.

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=secrets AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=secrets AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1 AWS_SSH_KEY=your_ssh_key_name AWS_ACCESS_KEY=secrets AWS_SECRET_KEY=secrets

Step 3: Genrate a new repository using the chef generate command

> chef generate repo chefdk-provision-demo
> cd chefdk-provision-demo

Step 4: Generate a provision cookbook. This is the required name, and it must be in the current directory.
> chef generate cookbook provision

Step 5: Edit the default recipe, $EDITOR provision/recipes/default.rb with following code…

context = ChefDK::ProvisioningData.context with_driver 'aws::us-west-2' options = { ssh_username: 'admin', use_private_ip_for_ssh: false, bootstrap_options: { key_name: 'jtimberman', image_id: 'ami-0d5b6c3d', instance_type: 'm3.medium', }, convergence_options: context.convergence_options, } machine context.node_name do machine_options options action context.action converge true end

Understand the code:
> To break this down, first we get the ChefDK provisioning context that will pass in options to chef-provisioning.
> Then we tell chef-provisioning to use the AWS driver, and in the us-west-2 region.
> The options hash is used to setup the instance.
> We’re using Debian 8, which uses the admin user to log in, an SSH key that exists in the AWS region, the actual AMI, and finally the instance type.
> Then, we’re going to set the convergence options automatically from ChefDK. This is the important part that will ensure the node has the right run list.

Step 6: Generate a Policyfile.rb and And edit its content, $EDITOR Policyfile.rb.
> chef generate policyfile
> vi policyfile.rb

name            "chefdk-provision-demo" default_source  :community run_list        "recipe[libuuid-user]" cookbook        "libuuid-user"

Here we’re simply getting the libuuid-user cookbook from Supermarket and applying the default recipe to the nodes that have this policy.

Step 7: The next step is to install the Policyfile. This generates the Policyfile.lock.json, and downloads the cookbooks to the cache, ~/.chefdk/cache/cookbooks. If this isn’t run, chef will complain, with a reminder to run it.

> chef install

Step 8: Finally, we can provision a testing system with this policy:

> chef provision testing –sync -n debian-libuuid

Reference:
http://jtimberman.housepub.org/blog/2015/05/15/quick-tip-chefdk-provision/

Rajesh Kumar

I’m Rajesh Kumar, a DevOps, SRE, DevSecOps, Cloud, and Platform Engineering expert passionate about sharing practical knowledge, real-world experiences, and industry best practices. I have worked at Cotocus and regularly write about technology, travel, investing, health, product reviews, and digital marketing through my various platforms.

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