Chef Essentials Training

Level: Intermediate

This two-day Chef Essentials course will teach you to use Chef to turn infrastructure into code so that you can automate configuration, deployment and management of your servers.

You’ll also learn about Chef architecture and the set of tools included in the Chef Development Kit (ChefDK). Finally, we’ll show you how to test your infrastructure code so that you can deploy with confidence. Each of the core units includes hands-on exercises that will give you confidence in your new skills. At the end of the course, you’ll come away with a repo and the skills to start automating your own infrastructure.

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Key Features of this Chef Essentials Training

After-course instructor coaching benefit

You Will Learn How To

Use Chef Resources to define the state of your system
Write and use Chef recipes and cookbooks
Automate testing of cookbooks
Manage multiple nodes with Chef Server
Create Organizations
Bootstrap nodes
Assign Roles to nodes
Deploy nodes to environments
Enable Chef’s search features with your automation
Create acceptance and production environments

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LIVE, INSTRUCTOR-LED

In Class & Live, Online Training

2-day instructor-led training course
One-on-one after-course instructor coaching
Tuition can be paid later by invoice -OR- at the time of checkout by credit card

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Standard $2535

Government $2535

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PRODUCT #3637

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Note: This course runs for 2 Days

Mar 16 - 17 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM EDT Live Online Reserve Your Seat
Apr 10 - 11 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM EDT Live Online Reserve Your Seat
May 18 - 19 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM EDT Live Online Reserve Your Seat
Jun 15 - 16 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM EDT Live Online Reserve Your Seat
Jul 20 - 21 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM EDT Live Online Reserve Your Seat
Aug 17 - 18 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM EDT Live Online Reserve Your Seat
Sep 21 - 22 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM EDT Live Online Reserve Your Seat
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Nov 16 - 17 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM EST Live Online Reserve Your Seat
Dec 14 - 15 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM EST Live Online Reserve Your Seat

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Chef Essentials Course Information

Recommended Experience
Some familiarity with the following:
- Writing code (of just about any flavor) in a text editor
- Working on the command line
Basic system administration – installing packages, configuring those packages, starting service
Course Preparation
Computer Labs Needed/Technical Specs:
Workstation Requirements:
Attendees should bring a wifi-enabled laptop to the workshop. The following operating systems have been tested as workstation systems with the hands on exercises:
- Ubuntu 10.04, 12.04
- Mac OS X 10.7.3+
Windows 7
Other platforms and platform versions may work without modification. Due to time constraints we will not be able to troubleshoot issues with unlisted platforms. Attendees should install non-Chef required software before the workshop starts.
- SSH/SCP (OpenSSH, puTTY/WinSCP or equivalent)
- Programer's text editor (Vi/Vim, Emacs, Sublime Text 2 or equivalent)
- Additionally, all attendees should install ChefDK.

Chef Essentials Course Outline

Chef Introduction
- Overview and expectations for the class
- The Chef Lab System Architecture
  - Group Lab: Pre-built workstation
Using Chef Resources
- Using Chef to install packages on your virtual workstation
- Using the chef-client command
- Creating a basic Chef recipe file
- Defining Chef Resources
- Test and repair
  - Lab: The 'file' resource
Building Cookbooks
- Modify a recipe
- Collaboration and version control
- Generating a Chef cookbook
- Defining a Chef recipe that sets up a web server
  - Group Exercise: Version Control
  - Lab: Set up Git
  - Lab: Setting up web servers
Chef client
- Locally applying multiple cookbooks' recipes with chef-client
- Applying a run list
- Including a recipe from within another recipe
  - Lab: Update the apache Cookbook
Testing Cookbooks
- Using Test Kitchen to verify your recipes converge on a virtual instance
- Reading the ServerSpec documentation
- Writing and execute tests
- Where do tests live?
  - Group Exercise: Test configuration
  - Lab: Converge the kitchen
  - Lab: Commit your work
  - Lab: Testing Apache
Details About a System
- Managing large numbers of servers
- Capturing details about a system
- Using the node object within a recipe
- Using Ruby's string interpolation
- Updating the version of a cookbook
  - Lab: Update the Cookbook version
  - Lab: Node Details in the Webserver
  - Lab: Commit your work
Desired State and Data
- Cleaner recipes
- When to use a template resource
- Creating a template file
- Using ERB tags to display node data in a template
- Defining a template resource
- Using kitchen test on the "apache" cookbook
- Using chef-clientto apply the "apache" cookbook's "default" recipe
- Updating the "apache" cookbook's version for this patch=
- Committing the changes
  - Lab: Update the version
Local Workstation Installation
- Installing ChefDK on your laptop
- Executing commands to ensure everything is installed
- Installing a local editor like Atom
  - Lab: You will run the following commands and report their versions: $chef, $chef-client, $knife, $ohai, $berks, $kitchen, $foodcritic, $rubocop
The Chef Server
- Connecting to a Chef Server
- Managing Additional systems
- Managing User traffic
- Uploading cookbooks to a Chef Server
- Bootstrapping a node
- Managing a node via a Chef Server
- Hosted Chef
  - Lab: Uploading cookbooks and managing cookbook dependencies
Community Cookbooks
- Find cookbooks on the Chef supermarket
- Create a wrapper cookbook
- Example: load balancer
- Amazon EC2 instances
- Replace the existing default values
- Upload a cookbook to Chef Server
- Bootstrap a new node that runs the cookbook
  - Discussion: Can your teams benefit from the supermarket?
Managing Multiple Nodes
- Managing user traffic
- Bootstrapping and updating the run_list
- Running chef-client on a node
- Appending values to an attribute within a recipe
- Versioning cookbooks and uploading to Chef Server
  - Lab: Another new node
  - Lab: Test and update the load balancer
  - Lab: Run $berks install
  - Lab: Converging the cookbook
Roles
- Assigning, defining, and configuring
- The 'knife' role
- Verifying roles
- Roles for everyone
  - Lab: Define a web role
Search
- Update a Cookbook to Dynamically Use Nodes with the Web Role
- Describe the query syntax used in search
- Build a search into your recipe code
- Create a Ruby Array and Ruby Hash
- Update the myhaproxy wrapper cookbook
  - Lab: Updating, load balancing, uploading and running the new search-capable cookbook
Environments
- Keeping your infrastructure current
- Creating a production environment
- Creating an acceptance environment
- Deploying a node to an environment
- Updating a search query to be more exact
  - Lab: Set new nodes to production
  - Lab: Acceptance environment
  - Lab: Create a new environment file
Course wrap and further resources
- Beyond essentials
- Valuable reading
- Events and online resources
- Customizing Chef

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