/ 
Pantry-0.012
River stage zero No dependents
/ Pantry

NAME

Pantry - Configuration management tool for chef-solo

VERSION

version 0.012

SYNOPSIS

$ mkdir my-project
$ cd my-project
$ pantry init
$ pantry create node foo.example.com
$ pantry list nodes
$ pantry apply node foo.example.com --recipe nginx
$ pantry apply node foo.example.com --default nginx.port=80
$ pantry sync node foo.example.com

DESCRIPTION

pantry is a utility to make it easier to manage a collection of computers with the configuration management tool Chef Solo http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Chef+Solo

USAGE

Arguments to the pantry command line tool follow a regular structure:

$ pantry VERB [[NOUN] [ARGUMENTS...]]

See the following sections for details and examples by topic.

Pantry setup and introspection

init

$ pantry init

This initializes a pantry in the current directory. Currently, it just creates some directories for use storing cookbooks, node data, data bags, etc.

list

$ pantry list nodes
$ pantry list roles
$ pantry list environments
$ pantry list cookbooks
$ pantry list bags

Prints to STDOUT a list of items of a particular type managed within the pantry.

Managing nodes

In this section, when a node NAME is required, the name is expected to be a valid DNS name or IP address. The name will be converted to lowercase for consistency. When referring to an existing node, you may often abbreviate it to a unique prefix, e.g. "foo" for "foo.example.com".

Also, whenever a command takes a single 'node NAME' target, you may give a single dash ('-') as the NAME and the command will be run against a list of nodes read from STDIN.

You can combine this with the pantry list command to do batch operations. For example, to sync all nodes:

$ pantry list nodes | pantry sync node -

Pantry supports grouping nodes into arbitrarily named environments, such as "test", "staging" or "production". The node commands "create" and "list" can be given an environment selector with the --env ENV_NAME or -E ENV_NAME options and all operations will be happen in the context of that environment.

This works with "list" and input from STDIN for a handy way to sync all nodes in an environment:

$ pantry list nodes -E staging | pantry sync node -

See ""Managing Environments" for more.

create

$ pantry create node NAME

Creates a node configuration file for the given NAME.

rename

$ pantry rename node NAME DESTINATION

Renames a node to a new name. The old node data file is renamed. The NAME must exist.

delete

$ pantry delete node NAME

Deletes a node. The NAME must exist. Unless the --force or -f options are given, the user will be prompted to confirm deletion.

show

$ pantry show node NAME

Prints to STDOUT the JSON data for the given NAME.

apply

$ pantry apply node NAME --recipe nginx --role mail --default nginx.port=80

Applies recipes, roles or attributes to the given NAME.

To apply a role to the node's run_list, specify --role role or -R role. May be specified multiple times to apply more than one role. Roles will be appended to the run_list before after any existing entries but before any recipes specified in the same command.

To apply a recipe to the node's run_list, specify --recipe RECIPE or -r RECIPE. May be specified multiple times to apply more than one recipe.

To apply an attribute to the node, specify --default KEY=VALUE or -d KEY=VALUE. If the KEY has components separated by periods (.), they will be interpreted as subkeys of a multi-level hash. For example:

$ pantry apply node NAME -d nginx.port=80

will be added to the node's data structure like this:

{
  ... # other node data
  nginx => {
    port => 80
  }
}

If the VALUE contains commas, the value will be split and serialized as an array data structure. For example:

$ pantry apply node NAME -d nginx.port=80,8080

will be added to the node's data structure like this:

{
  ... # other node data
  nginx => {
    port => [80, 8080]
  }
}

Both KEY and VALUE support periods and commas (respectively) to be escaped by a backslash.

If a VALUE is a literal string containing 'true' or 'false', it will be replaced in the configuration data with actual JSON boolean values.

N.B. While the term --default is used for command line consistency, attributes set on nodes actually have what Chef terms "normal" precedence.

strip

$ pantry strip node NAME --recipe nginx --role mail --default nginx.port

Strips recipes, roles or attributes from the given NAME.

To strip a role to the node's run_list, specify --role role or -R role. May be specified multiple times to strip more than one role.

To strip a recipe to the node's run_list, specify --recipe RECIPE or -r RECIPE. May be specified multiple times to strip more than one recipe.

To strip an attribute from the node, specify --default KEY or -d KEY. The KEY parameter is interpreted and may be escaped just like in apply, above.

sync

$ pantry sync node NAME

Copies cookbooks and configuration data to the NAME node and invokes chef-solo via ssh to start a configuration run. After configuration, the latest run-report for the node is updated in the 'reports' directory of the pantry.

If the --reboot option is given, each node will be rebooted after the synchronization run. This will only work on Unix hosts that can use the shutdown command.

edit

$ pantry edit node NAME

Invokes the editor given by the environment variable EDITOR on the configuration file for the name node.

The resulting file must be valid JSON in a form acceptable to Chef. Generally, you should use the apply or strip commands instead of editing the node file directly.

Managing roles

In this section, when a role NAME is required, any name without whitespace is acceptable. The name will be converted to lowercase for consistency. When referring to an existing role, you may often abbreviate it to a unique prefix, e.g. "web" for "webserver".

Also, whenever a command takes a single 'role NAME' target, you may give a single dash ('-') as the NAME and the command will be run against a list of roles read from STDIN.

You can combine this with the pantry list command to do batch operations. For example, to add a recipe to all roles:

$ pantry list roles | pantry apply role - --recipe ntp

create, rename, delete, show and edit

These commands work the same as they do for nodes. The difference is that you must specify the 'role' type:

$ pantry create role web
$ pantry show role web

apply and strip

The apply and strip commands have slight differences, as roles have two kinds of attributes, "default attributes" (--default or -d) and "override attributes" (--override), with slightly different precedence.

$ pantry apply role NAME -d nginx.user=nobody --override nginx.port=80
$ pantry strip role NAME -d nginx.user --override nginx.port

The --recipe (-r) and --role (-R) arguments work the same as for nodes. Note that roles can have other roles in their run_list.

When Chef merges attribute, the role default attribute has the lower precedence than node attributes. Override attributes have higher precedence than node attributes. Yes, this is a gross simplification of how Chef does it. See Chef docs for more: http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Attributes

Roles have two kinds of run lists: default and environment-specific. The default run list applies whenever there is no environment-specific run list for the active environment for a node. You can apply/strip environment-specific run list entries with the -E ENV_NAME option, or omit it to apply/strip from the default list.

$ pantry apply role web -r nginx
$ pantry apply role web -r ufw -E production

Managing data bags

In this section, when a bag NAME is required, any name without whitespace is acceptable. The name will be converted to lowercase for consistency. When referring to an existing bag, you may often abbreviate it to a unique prefix, e.g. "users/d" for "users/dagolden".

Note that data bags may exist at the "top" level or within subdirectories and so either of these forms are acceptable as bag names:

  • top_level_bag

  • bag_name/item_name

Also, whenever a command takes a single 'bag NAME' target, you may give a single dash ('-') as the NAME and the command will be run against a list of bags read from STDIN.

You can combine this with the pantry list command to do batch operations.

$ pantry list bags | grep users | pantry apply bag - -d remove=true

create, rename, delete, show and edit

These commands work the same as they do for nodes. The difference is that you must specify the 'bag' type:

$ pantry create bag users/dagolden
$ pantry show bag users/dagolden

apply and strip

The apply and strip commands have slight differences, as bags don't have attributes in the way that nodes or roles do. The "default" flags are used and just set fields in the top level of the bag. (Don't set "id" or bad things might happen.)

$ pantry apply bag NAME -d key=value
$ pantry strip bag NAME -d key

Managing environments

In this section, when a environment NAME is required, any name without whitespace is acceptable. The name will be converted to lowercase for consistency. When referring to an existing role, you may often abbreviate it to a unique prefix, e.g. "prod" for "production".

Also, whenever a command takes a single 'environment NAME' target, you may give a single dash ('-') as the NAME and the command will be run against a list of roles read from STDIN.

You can combine this with the pantry list command to do batch operations. For example, to add a default to all environments:

$ pantry list environments | pantry apply environment - -d nginx.port=8080

Environments are different than nodes and roles because there are really three ways to work with an environment. When you create an environment, an environment data file is created to hold attributes. When you create a node, it gets assigned to an environment (the "_default" environment is used if you don't specify one). However, you can create a node in an environment even if you don't create the environment data file first. Finally, roles can have environment-specific run lists.

Here's a summary of those distinctions:

When you want to affect environment data files, you'll use pantry VERB environment ... commands, like this:

$ pantry show environment staging

When you want to set an environment for node and role actions, you'll use the --env or -E selector option

$ pantry create node foo.example.com -E test
$ pantry apply role web -r ufw -E production

create, rename, delete, show and edit

These commands work the same as they do for nodes and roles. The difference is that you must specify the 'environment' type:

$ pantry create environment staging
$ pantry show environment staging

apply and strip

The apply and strip commands work like roles, except that environments don't have run lists.

$ pantry apply environment NAME -d nginx.user=nobody --override nginx.port=80
$ pantry strip environment NAME -d nginx.user --override nginx.port

If you want to have different run lists in different environments, you have to do that via roles, with environment-specific run lists:

# turn on firewall in production
$ pantry apply role web -r ufw -E production

An environment-specific run list replaces the default run list if the role is applied to a node in the specified environment.

Chef Solo does not yet have support for merging environment attributes the way Chef Client does. Therefore, during sync, Pantry will do its own merge with node attributes to provide a reasonable emulation. The precedence is slightly different, but if you have overlapping environment, role and node attributes and the order is really important to you, you're probably over-complicating things. See Chef docs for more: http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Attributes

Managing cookbooks

Pantry does very little to manage cookbooks -- this is left up to you and you are free to do whatever you like in the cookbooks directory.

As a convenience, however, Pantry may be used to create an empty boilerplate cookbook for you to customize:

$ pantry create cookbook my-cookbook

Getting help

commands

$ pantry commands

This gives a list of all pantry commands with a short description of each.

help

$ pantry help COMMAND

This gives some detailed help for a command, including the options and arguments that may be used.

AUTHENTICATION

pantry relies on OpenSSH for secure communications with managed nodes, but does not manage keys itself. Instead, it expects the user to manage keys using standard OpenSSH configuration and tools.

The user should specify SSH private keys to use in the ssh config file. One approach would be to use the IdentityFile with a host-name wildcard:

IdentityFile ~/.ssh/identities/id_dsa_%h

This would allow a directory of host-specific identities (which could all be symlinks to a master key). Another alternative might be to create a master key for each environment:

IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa_dev
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa_test
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa_prod

pantry also assumes that the user will unlock keys using ssh-agent. For example, assuming that ssh-agent has not already been invoked by a graphical shell session, it can be started with a subshell of a terminal:

$ ssh-agent $SHELL

Then private keys can be unlocked in advance of running pantry using ssh-add:

$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_dsa_test
$ pantry ...

See the documentation for ssh-add for control over how long keys stay unlocked.

ROADMAP

In the future, I hope to extend pantry to support some or all of the following:

  • tagging nodes

  • searching nodes based on configuration

  • encrypted data bags (or equivalent functionality)

  • cookbook download from Opscode community repository

  • bootstrapping Chef over ssh

If you are interested in contributing features or bug fixes, please let me know!

SEE ALSO

Inspiration for this tool came from similar chef-solo management tools. In addition to being implemented in different languages, each approaches the problem in slightly different ways, neither of which fit my priorities. Nevertheless, if you use chef-solo, you might consider them as well:

SUPPORT

Bugs / Feature Requests

Please report any bugs or feature requests through the issue tracker at https://github.com/dagolden/pantry/issues. You will be notified automatically of any progress on your issue.

Source Code

This is open source software. The code repository is available for public review and contribution under the terms of the license.

https://github.com/dagolden/pantry

git clone git://github.com/dagolden/pantry.git

AUTHOR

David Golden <dagolden@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is Copyright (c) 2011 by David Golden.

This is free software, licensed under:

The Apache License, Version 2.0, January 2004