Chef Playground

Welcome to the Chef playground.

Our playground comes equipped with everything you need to experiment with Chef, risk-free! Everything is available in your web browser. No need to install complicated software or rent servers. 

Chef is a company with several software automation products. This playground focuses on Chef Infra, a configuration management automation software. 

In simple terms, Chef Infra automates the configuration & management of servers. That includes things such as managing users & permissions, installing & configuring software, and other similar tasks. 

First, let's talk about some important terms used in the Chef universe.

• Resources: Resources are used to configure infrastructure, such as creating users, installing packages, etc. A resource declares the steps needed to bring a resource type (such as user, file & package) to the desired state. It is written using the Ruby programming language.
• Recipes: Multiple resources are grouped together to form a recipe. Recipes tell Chef which resources you want to configure on your server. 
• Cookbooks: Multiple recipes together form a cookbook. Cookbooks are designed to perform a specific set of tasks. For example, the mysql cookbook is used to manage MySQL databases. 

Chef Infra Components

Chef Infra’s architecture is divided into three main components:

1. Chef Workstation: The Chef workstation is a location where you can write & test cookbooks. You can also interact with the Chef Infra Server using “knife”. Knife is Chef’s command line tool. It is used to upload cookbooks to Chef Infra Server. The Chef Workstation package includes the Chef Infra Client.
2. Chef Infra Client: The Chef Infra Client is installed on each node (a physical or virtual machine) managed by Chef Infra. When the Chef Infra Client is run on a node, it retrieves cookbooks from the Chef Server and executes them. This brings the node into the expected state.
3. Chef Server: The Chef Server is a central hub for configuration information. It stores cookbooks, the policies that are applied to the systems in your infrastructure, and metadata that describe each system.

Playground Features

The playground includes a standalone server that runs both a Chef Workstation & a Chef Infra Server. It also includes a repository called chef-repo. Chef-repo is a collection of files and directories containing cookbooks and configuration policies needed to manage your infrastructure.

Playground Notes

You can use the playground for 1 hour. If required, you can extend the usage by 15 minutes by clicking on the icon next to the timer icon. 

If you need help, check out our beginner-friendly course: Chef for the Absolute Beginners.

Have fun & happy configuring!