What is Chef? Powerful DevOps Tool For Configuration Management

Today, in an organisation, system admins or DevOps Engineers spend more time deploying new services and applications, installing and updating network packages, and preparing machine servers for deployment. This results in tedious human efforts and demands a significant allocation of human resources. To solve this problem, configuration management was introduced. By using configuration management tools like Chef and Puppet, you can deploy, repair and update the entire application infrastructure with automation.

Chef is a powerful automation tool that can deploy, repair, update and also manage servers and applications in any environment.

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So, what exactly is Chef?

Chef is a Configuration management DevOps tool that automates infrastructure management by writing code, rather than relying on manual processes, making it easier to automate, test, and deploy.

As of Chef Infra 18, the platform includes enhanced compliance capabilities, native integration with Kubernetes and Terraform for infrastructure-as-code workflows, and improved performance for large-scale deployments. This means teams can automate provisioning for both traditional servers and containerised workloads in a consistent, repeatable way. In hybrid cloud setups, spanning on-premises, AWS, Azure, and GCP, Chef provides unified policy enforcement and configuration management from a single interface.

Configuration Management

Letus consider an example: suppose you are a system engineer in an organisation, and you need to deploy or update software or an operating system on over a hundred systems within a single day. This can be done manually, but still, it causes multiple errors, some software may crash while updating, and we won’t be able to revert to the previous version. To solve such kinds of issues, we use Configuration management.

Configuration Management tracks all software and hardware-related information within an organisation, and it also repairs, deploys, and updates the entire application using its automated procedures. Configuration management does the work of multiple System Administrators and developers who manage hundreds of servers and applications. Some tools used for Configuration management are Chef, Puppet, Ansible, CF Engine, SaltStack, etc.

Why Chef?

Let us take a scenario, suppose you have shifted your office into a different environment and you wanted your system administrator to install, update and deploy software on hundreds of systems overnight. When the system engineer does this task manually, it may cause Human errors and some software may not function properly. At this stage, we use Chef, a powerful automated tool that converts infrastructure into code.

Chef automated the application configuration, deployment, and management throughout the network, even when operating in a cloud or hybrid environment. We can use Chef to speed up the application deployment. Chef is a great tool for accelerating software delivery, the speed of software development refers to how quickly the software is able to change in response to new requirements or condition.

Benefits of Chef

Accelerating software delivery is significantly faster when your infrastructure is automated, as it streamlines tasks such as testing and creating new environments for software deployments.

Increased service resiliency is achieved by automating the infrastructure, which enables it to monitor for bugs and errors before they occur and recover from them more quickly.

Risk Management, Chef lowers risk and improves compliance at all stages of deployment. It reduces conflicts during development and production environments.

Cloud Adoption: Chef can be easily adapted to a cloud environment, and the servers and infrastructure can be easily configured, installed, and managed automatically by Chef.

As discussed earlier, Chef can manage Data Centres and Cloud Environments on different platforms. Under Chef, you can manage all your cloud and on-premise platforms, including servers.

Streamlined IT operation and Workflow, Chef provides a pipeline for continuous deployment, starting from building to testing and all the way through delivery, monitoring, and troubleshooting.

Features of Chef

• Compliance Scanning: Chef Infra 18 comes with built-in InSpec support, which means it can automatically check your systems for compliance with standards like CIS and PCI-DSS while deploying – no extra tools needed.
• Kubernetes Integration: You can now use Chef to manage your Kubernetes resources just like your regular servers. This makes it easier to handle both containerised apps and traditional infrastructure in one place.
• Hybrid Cloud Support: Chef works smoothly across on-prem servers, private data centres, and cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. This helps ensure everything is set up consistently, no matter where it runs.
• Centralised Management: Using Chef Automate, you can view and manage policies, deployments, and compliance reports from a single dashboard. This simplifies operations and saves time.

Pros of Chef

• One of the most flexible solutions for OS and middleware management.
• Designed for programmers.
• Chef offers hybrid and SaaS solutions for Chef Servers
• Sequential execution order
• Very stable, reliable and mature, especially for large deployments in both public and private environments.

 Cons of Chef

• Requires a steep learning curve
• Initial setup is complicated.
• Lacks push, so no immediate actions on change. The pull process follows a specified schedule.

Check this Intellipaat Chef video :

How Chef Works?

Chef basically consists of three components: Chef Server, workstations and Nodes. The chef server is the central hub of all the operations where changes are stored. The workstation is the place where all the codes are created or changed. Nodes are machines that are managed by Chef.

The user can interact with Chef and Chef Server through Chef Workstation. Knife and Chef command-line tools are used for interacting with Chef Server. Chef node is a virtual or a cloud machine managed by Chef, and each node is configured by Chef-Client installed on it. Chef server stores all parts of the configuration. It ensures all the elements are in the right place and are working as expected.

Chef Components

Chef has major components such as Workstation, Cookbook, Node, Chef-Client, and Chef-Server. Let us see the entire major component in detail.

• Chef Server

Chef server contains all configuration data, and it stores cookbooks, recipes, and metadata that describe each node in the Chef-Client.  Configuration details are given to the node through Chef-Client. Any changes made must pass through the Chef server to be deployed. Prior to pushing the changes, it verifies that the nodes and workstations are paired with the server through the use of authorisation keys, and then allows for communication between workstations and nodes.

• Workstation

The workstation is used to interact with Chef-server and also to interact with Chef-nodes. It is also used to create Cookbooks. A workstation is a place where all interactions take place, including the creation, testing, and deployment of cookbooks, as well as the testing of codes. A workstation is also used for defining roles and environments based on the development and production environment. Some components of the workstation are

Development Kit contains all the packages required for using Chef

Chef Command line tool is a place where cookbooks are created, tested and deployed, and through this, policies are uploaded to Chef Server.

A knife is used for interacting with Chef Nodes.

Test Kitchen is for validating Chef Code

Chef-Repo is a repository in which cookbooks are created, tested and maintained through the Chef Command line tool.

Example: Configuring an Apache Web Server
Here’s a simple Chef recipe that installs and starts Apache on a Linux node:

package 'apache2' do
  action :install
end

service 'apache2' do
  action [:enable, :start]
end

file '/var/www/html/index.html' do
  content '<h1>Hello from Chef!</h1>'
  action :create
end

This recipe ensures Apache is installed, enabled, and running, with a default homepage created automatically. Using Chef, the same configuration can be applied to hundreds of servers in minutes.

• Cookbooks

Cookbooks are created using the Ruby language, and Domain Specific languages are used for specific resources. A cookbook contains recipes that specify resources to be used and in which order it is to be used. The cookbook contains all the details regarding the work, and it changes the configuration of the Chef-Node.

Attributes are used for overriding default setting in a node.

Files are for transferring files from sub directory to a specific path in chef-client.

Libraries are written in Ruby, and it’s used for configuring custom resources and recipes.

Metadata contains information for deploying the cookbooks to each node.

Recipes are a configuration element that is stored in a cookbook. Recipes can also be included in other recipes and executed based on the run list. Recipes are created using the Ruby language.

• Nodes

Nodes are managed by Chef, and each node is configured by installing Chef-Client on it. Chef-Nodes are a machine, such as a physical, virtual cloud, etc.

Chief-Client is for registering and authenticating nodes, building node objects and configuring the nodes. Chief-client runs locally on every node to configure the node.

Ohai is used for determining the system state at the beginning of the Chef run in Chef-Client. It Collects. All the system configuration data.

Roles of Chef in DevOps

Chef is for automating and managing the infrastructure. Chef IT automation can be done using various Chef DevOps products, such as Chef-server and Chef-client. Chef DevOps is a tool for accelerating application delivery and DevOps Collaboration. Chef helps solve the problem by treating infrastructure as code. Rather than manually changing anything, the machine setup is described in a Chef recipe.

Conclusion

Chef is a powerful configuration management tool in DevOps, offering excellent features that make it a market leader. Day by day, Chef has been enhancing its features and delivering positive results to customers. Chef is used by the world’s leading IT industries like Facebook, AWS, HP Public Cloud, etc. Job opportunities are increasing day by day for Chef Automation masters.

Land your dream DevOps job—practice these Chef interview questions!

What is Chef? – FAQs