• in this tutorial i used an amazon instance ubtuntu image and type t2.medium
• when you create your ec2 instances where you will install the chef workstation, server, node make sure to enable below security group

• install chef server

wget https://packages.chef.io/files/stable/chef-server/13.1.13/ubuntu/18.04/chef-server-core_13.1.13-1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i chef-server-core_*.deb
sudo chef-server-ctl reconfigure

• create .chef directory on the home directory

mkdir $HOME/.chef

• create user and organization

sudo chef-server-ctl user-create abdelali abdelali jadelmoula jadelmoulaa2@gmail.com 'Aa123456789@' --filename /home/ubuntu/.chef/abdelali.pem

sudo chef-server-ctl org-create org abdelali_org --association_user abdelali --filename /home/ubuntu/.chef/abdelali_org.pem

• install the console management to interact with the chef server through the browser

chef-server-ctl install chef-manage
chef-server-ctl reconfigure
chef-manage-ctl reconfigure

• install the workstation

wget  https://packages.chef.io/files/stable/chef-workstation/0.2.43/ubuntu/18.04/chef-workstation_0.2.43-1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i chef-workstation_*.deb

• generate ssh keys and copy the public one on the chef server

ssh-keygen -t rsa

ssh-copy-id username-of-chef-ser@chef-ip-address

• create directories on the workstation

mkdir -p chef-repo/.chef

• copy the chef user and chef organization pem files from .chef on the chef server to the workstation scp chef-server-user@chef-server-ip-address:~/.chef/*.pem ~/chef-repo/.chef

• creare config.rb file under /chef-repo/.chef (this file will have creadentials and instruction that will be used by knife)

current_dir = File.dirname(__FILE__)
log_level                :info
log_location             STDOUT
node_name                'node_name'
client_key               "USER.pem"
validation_client_name   'ORG_NAME-validator'
validation_key           "ORGANIZATION-validator.pem"
chef_server_url          'https://example.com/organizations/ORG_NAME'
cache_type               'BasicFile'
cache_options( :path => "#{ENV['HOME']}/.chef/checksums" )
cookbook_path            ["#{current_dir}/../cookbooks"]

• example:

current_dir = File.dirname(__FILE__)
log_level                :info
log_location             STDOUT
node_name                'abdelali'
client_key               "abdelali.pem"
validation_client_name   'abdelali_org-validator'
validation_key           "abdelali_org-validator.pem"
chef_server_url          'https://ip-16-10-0-102.eu-west-3.compute.internal/organizations/abdelali_org'
cache_type               'BasicFile'
cache_options( :path => "#{ENV['HOME']}/.chef/checksums" )
#cookbook_path            ["#{current_dir}/../cookbooks"]
cookbook_path            ["#{current_dir}/"]

• the node_name is the username you have created on the chef server with the organization

• make sure to run the knife command on the directory where your .chef directory exists

• run the below command

knife ssl fetch

• check wether if everything work as expected

knife ssl check  

• if you see errors after your runned the above command, make sure that the name of the chef server (ip-16-10-0-102.eu-west-3.compute.internal)
• is the same as the name of the certificate that is been generated when you runned the knife ssl fetch command
• to check that go to $HOME/chef-repo/.chef/trusted_certs and see the name of *.crt certificat because this certificate is was signed
• for this ip-16-10-0-102.eu-west-3.compute.internal and if you try to use another host name for your chef server then you will face errors

• join the node to the chef server

 knife bootstrap 192.0.2.0 -x root -P password --node-name nodename

• make sure to use the root credentials because this command will install some packages
• on your chef node server so those commands will require priviledges

• create a director called cookbooks under chef-repo/.chef

mkdir $HOME/chef-repo/.chef

• create chef cookbook

chef generate cookbook sample

• edit sample/recipies/default.rb

nano sample/recipies/default.rb

• add the below lines to the default.rb file

package 'nginx'
service 'nginx' do
action [:enable, :start]
end

• this will install and start the nginx web server service

• upload the cookbook to chef server

knife cookbook upload sample

• add run list to your node either from the console or using the command

• click on the icon on the right side of the setting icon and click on the Edit Run List option

• this pop-up will appear

• drag and drop the recipe from the Available recipe section

• click on the save button

• then go to your chef node server and run chef-client command

sudo chef-client 

• this command will pull the cookbook and run the recipies