Chef Interview Questions

CTA

Most Frequently Asked Chef Interview Questions

1. What is Chef?
2. Explain the major components of Chef?
3. What is a Chef resource and what are its functions?
4. What are Chef Resources and its functions?
5. What is the difference between a Cookbook and a Recipe in Chef?
6. How does a Chef Repository work?
7. Why are SSL certificates used in Chef?
8. What is the significance of a Signed Header?
9. Explain therun-list in Chef?
10. What is the importance of Chef starter kit?

Chef is a powerful DevOps automation tool that is used for deploying, repairing, updating, and also for the management of servers and applications. With the adoption of DevOps in businesses, there is a rising demand for proficient Chef practitioners. This blog serves as a comprehensive guide for individuals preparing for a Chef interview, providing a variety of interview questions. You can easily crack your job interview with the help of these Chef interview questions. 

1. What is Chef?

First let us compare Chef with Puppet:

Chef is a powerful configuration management tool and automation tool. It converts the infrastructure of the company into a structured format of code. Thanks to Chef you can develop scripts that can be used for automating the IT and business process.

2. Explain the major components of Chef?

The architecture of Chef can be broken down into the Chef Server, Chef Workstation and Chef Node.

• Chef Server – You can think of the Chef Server as the central store for that accumulates all the data that is necessary for configuring the nodes.
• Chef Node – The Chef Node can be thought of as a client responsible for sharing data across network and it is based on the chef-client architecture.
• Chef Workstation – The Chef Workstation can be thought of as the host for modifying the configuration data and cookbooks which is then forwarded to the Chef Server.

3. What is a Chef resource and what are its functions?

You can think of the Chef resource as a part of the infrastructure which is used for installing or running a service. Here we will discuss some of the important Chef resources:

• The desired state of a configuration item can be described
• To bring a certain item to a state you will know what are the steps involved
• You can choose the resources like package, template or services
• You can list the resource properties and other details needed
• You can group the resources into recipes for describing working configuration.

4. What are Chef Resources and its functions?

When you group resources, it gets converted into a Recipe and this describes the working configuration and the policy. Using the Recipe, you can get all that is necessary for configuring a specific system. So here we list some of the important functions of a Recipe:

• With the Chef Recipe you can install the software components
• You can manage the files and apps deployment
• You can execute the other recipes using one recipe.

5. What is a Chef Node and what is its importance?

We can think of the node as a physical server or a virtual machine that is a constituent of the Chef architecture. You can execute any resource with Chef.

6. What is the difference between a Cookbook and a Recipe in Chef?

When you group resources together what you get is a Recipe and this is useful in executing the configurations and policy. When you combine Recipes what you get is a Cookbook and this is easily manageable as compared to a Recipe.

7. How does a Chef Repository work?

You can think of the Chef Repository as a collection of Cookbooks, roles, environments, data bags and more. It is possible to sync the Chef Repository with the Git and a Version Control System in order to improve the performance of it.

8. Why are SSL certificates used in Chef?

You need the SSL certificate for the initial configuration of the Chef and for creating the certificate and private keys in Nginx. This ensures that the right data can be accessed between the Chef Client and Chef Server.

9. What is the significance of a Signed Header?

The Signed Header is needed for the validation of the interaction between the Chef node, server and signed header authentication.

10. Explain therun-list in Chef?

The run-list is needed for specifying the Recipes that are needed for running it and the order in which the Recipes will be executed.

Some of the advantages of run-list include:

• It ensures that the Recipes are running in the same order as specified
• The node on which the run-list is to be executed has to be specified
• It is transferred from the Workstation to Chef Server and the management console.

11. What is the importance of Chef starter kit?

The starter kit is needed for creating the configuration files in Chef. It gives you the information for interacting with the server and defining the configuration file. You can easily download the starter kit and use it at the desired place on the workstation.

12. What is the process for updating a Chef Cookbook?

Here we give you the steps to follow for updating a Chef Cookbook:

• From the Workstation run the Knife SSH
• Run the SSH and Chef-client on the server directly
• You can use the Chef-client as a daemon for restarting the service as needed.

13. What is the process for bootstrapping in Chef and the information needed?

If you want to bootstrap in Chef, then you need the following information:

• The hostname or Public IP address of the node
• The user name and password for logging into a particular node
• Using keys as authentication rather than any login credentials.

14. Explain your understanding of Test Kitchen in Chef?

The Test Kitchen in Chef will help you improve the development lifecycle and enables the Cookbooks on the server. You can also create different virtual machines in cloud or on-premise.

Chef DevOps Engineer Salary Trends

The global Chef DevOps Engineer salary trends have shown a consistent increase over the years. The average salary for a Chef DevOps Engineer is INR 6 LPA in India and USD 124K in the U.S., according to 2024 data.

• Entry-Level Chef DevOps Engineer Salary: The average starting salary is INR 4.1 LPA for an entry-level Chef DevOps Engineer with 0-2 years of experience.
• Intermediate-Level Chef DevOps Engineer Salary: A Chef DevOps Engineer with 4 to 9 years of experience typically makes around INR 8 LPA in the middle of their career.
• Senior Chef DevOps Engineer Salary: An experienced Chef DevOps Engineer with 10 to 20 years of work experience usually earns about INR 13 LPA on average.

Chef DevOps Engineer Job Trends 

• Projected Growth: Between 2018 and 2021, the demand for Chef DevOps Engineers increased by more than 24.2%, and it is expected to increase by more than 15% by 2030. 

• Global Trends: Countries with established tech industries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany have witnessed a substantial surge in job opportunities for Chef DevOps Engineers, reflecting the integral role of this technology in these tech hubs.

• Emerging Markets: Emerging tech areas like India have also experienced a notable increase in job openings for Chef DevOps Engineers. The growth in India is attributed to both local companies’ demand for skilled professionals and the outsourcing of tech work by international companies to capitalize on the country’s talent pool.

Chef DevOps Engineer Roles and Responsibilities

Job Opportunities for Chef DevOps Engineers

According to the job posted by Broadridge Matrix Trust Company, the responsibilities are:

Cloud Engineer with Chef and Terraform

• Responsible for effectively managing stakeholders like App, Dev, Product, Enterprise architecture, CoEs, and so on.
• Proficient in DevOPs with tech stack of Chef/Jenkins/Terraform
• Good knowledge of containerization of technologies, specifically Kubernetes and DevOps.

Conclusion

We hope these Chef interview questions will help you prepare for your interviews. All the best!

Enroll today in our comprehensive DevOps Course or join Intellipaat’s Advanced Certification in DevOps & Cloud Computing by IIT Madras to start your career or enhance your skills in the field of DevOps and get certified today.