Infrastructure as Code: Introduction to Chef

The full stack: the final frontier. As developers we take problems and use code to describe the proposed solution to solve the problem using the resources available to us. Infrastructure as Code is a way of codifying the installation of services and software on a machine starting with a fresh image.

This session explores infrastructure as code using Chef and will allow you to manage your infrastructure as resources in code vs. a slew of shell scripts. In addition, talk about Chef testing techniques.

Transcript

1. Infrastructure as Code with Chef http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-2572841582
2. Jesse Dearing @JesseDearing Full Stack Developer
4. Front-end (HTML, JavaScript) App (Ruby) Data Models (Ruby) Database (PostgreSQL, MySQL) OS (Linux) I work in all these layers Infrastructure as Code and Chef live here
5. I work for
6. Dependency Resolution Time To understand Chef you have to understand Infrastructure as Code
7. Dependency Resolution Time To understand you have to understand Infrastructure as Code Devops
8. Dependency Resolution Time To understand you have to understand Devops writing and running software
9. What is DevOps?
10. Developers and Operations
11. Developers and Operations X vs
12. Fight!
13. Developers ‣Write buggy code ‣Do not develop on systems that look like production ‣Builds features to throw over the wall ‣Think that understanding infrastructure is not their problem Operations ‣Stands in the way of deployments ‣Mostly reactive to issues as alerts are triggered ‣Rolls back code that works on my box™ ‣Think that understanding architecture is not their problem ‣Think that understanding architecture is not their problem ‣Think that understanding infrastructure is not their problem
14. Developers Operations ‣Think that understanding architecture is not their problem ‣Think that understanding infrastructure is not their problem
16. DevOps is about breaking down silos Code inventory (software not deployed to production) has no business value Only shipped code has value Devs and Ops are responsible for shipping Give and take: devs take the pager to assist with software issues and ops codifies processes Dev and Ops need to speak a common language
17. Infrastructure as Code
18. Infrastructure is composed of ๏CPU ๏Memory ๏Network ๏Disks ๏Remote Storage ๏Virtual Machines ๏Policy Configuration ๏Firewalls ๏Services
19. Infrastructure is composed of ๏CPU ๏Memory ๏Network ๏Disks ๏Remote Storage ๏Virtual Machines ๏Policy Configuration ๏Firewalls ๏Services CODE Resources
20. So I just commit all my shell scripts? ಠ_ಠ
21. Shell scripts always need tweaking You can’t run shell scripts against a given criteria of servers Shell scripts take a lot of work to make idempotent There is a better way!
22. Introducing Chef
23. 3 ways of using Chef Chef Solo Chef Server Hosted Chef
24. 3 ways of using Chef Chef Solo Chef Server Hosted Chef
25. Chef Solo Write resources Recipes, Data Bags, Roles
26. Chef Solo Write resources Execute them Recipes, Data Bags, Roles Chef-solo
27. Chef Solo Write resources Execute them Installs packages, creates files, etc. Recipes, Data Bags, Roles Chef-solo Updates system state
28. Chef Solo Write resources Execute them Installs packages, creates files, etc. Recipes, Data Bags, Roles Chef-solo Updates system state Meh.
29. Only slight improvement over shell scripts But it’s great for testing your Chef scripts before uploading them to the server
30. 3 ways of using Chef Chef Solo Chef Server Hosted Chef
31. Node that polls with chef-client chef-server Polls server periodically for run list or data changes
32. Node that polls with chef-client chef-server Also sends back metadata about the node using Ohai
33. Node that polls with chef-client chef-server Also sends back metadata about the node using Ohai My laptop Modify recipes, search nodes, change variables
34. Ohai Gathers metadata from the node to send back to Chef server •Installed languages •CPU •Kernel version •Settings •IP Address •Users •Groups (Oh, hi)
35. 3 ways of using Chef Chef Solo Chef Server Hosted Chef
36. OpsCode runs your chef-server
37. user "foobar" file "/etc/service.conf" do mode '0640' owner 'foobar' end package "nginx" execute "/usr/bin/somecommand" Recipe Example
38. Recipes can be shared and committed to source control
40. Configuration is stored on the Chef server API keys, passwords, environment/role/instance specific data
41. Let’s see how the MySQL recipe sets the root password
42. Chef’s best friend: He’s a Vagrant
43. Defines VirtualBox VMs Creates using CLI Forwards ports Tears down VMs
45. Questions?
46. Thanks!