topo Cookbook

This cookbook supports unattended bootstrap of nodes when
using the knife-topo plugin
to configure single or multi-node topologies.
This can be useful in combination with CloudFormation or other
provisioning tools.

The source for this cookbook is on Github.

setup_node recipe

Upload a topology definition to the Chef Server using knife-topo:

knife topo import test1.json
knife topo create test1

Use a single attribute in a first-boot json file of each node to specify
the topology name, and optionally a node type:

firstboot.json
{
  "topo": {
    "name": "test1",
    "node_type": "appserver"
  }
}

Trigger the unattended bootstrap by running:

chef-client -o topo::setup_node --json firstboot.json
chef-client

The first chef-client run will set the configuration (runlist, chef
environment, tags and attributes) based on the uploaded topology
and either the node name or the node type; the second run will apply
that configuration.

setup_chef_cleanup recipe

Use the 'setup_chef_cleanup' recipe to create a script that will invoke
the run_chef_cleanup recipe when the node is shutdown.

This recipe is platform-specific has only been tested on Ubuntu 14.04.

run_chef_cleanup recipe

Use the 'run_chef_cleanup' recipe to delete the chef node and client from
the Chef server, and also delete the validation and client keys.

To keep the validation key, set node['topo']['delete_validation_key']
to 'never'. Other values are 'startup' and 'shutdown'.

refresh_attributes recipe

Load attributes from topology data bag on each run.

Attributes

• node['topo']['name'] - Name of the topology to be used to configure the node
• node['topo']['node_type'] - If node.name is not found in the topology, then this attribute will be used to find a match.
• node['topo']['blueprint_name'] - If no topology data bag item matching node['topo']['name'] is found, then this attribute is used as an alternative.
• node['topo']['refresh_attributes'] - If true, load attributes from topology data bag on each chef run. Defaults to false.

Example

The [example](example) provides a Cloud Formation template that uses the topo cookbook
and knife topo to setup a nodejs application. My blog provides a
detailed walkthrough of the example.

License

Author:: Christine Draper (christine_draper@thirdwaveinsights.com)

Copyright:: Copyright (c) 2015-2016 ThirdWave Insights, LLC

License:: Apache License, Version 2.0

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.