This Chef 101 Workshop is a hands on training class for getting familiar with Chef for performing common automation tasks. In this workshop, we will cover:

1. Set up a local workstation with Chef and connect to a Chef Server.
2. Use Chef to automate installation of a Nagios server as a real world example.
3. Automate other common system tasks with Chef, including:

• User management and sudo permissions
• NTP, including a local NTP server
• SMTP relaying with postfix

Each exercise will be instructor-led, and introduce new Chef concepts along the way. We'll cover the Anatomy of a Chef Run, Chef's Authentication Cycle, how to build roles, manipulate configuration through data in attributes, use Chef's search API for dynamic configuration, and more.

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.

• VMware Fusion, Player or Workstation or Oracle VirtualBox
• SSH/SCP (OpenSSH, puTTY/WinSCP or equivalent)
• Git

On Unix/Linux/OS X systems:

• C/C++ compiler, build environment (build-essential, Xcode, or platform equivalent).

If Chef is not already installed, use Opscode's Full Stack Chef installer. This will also be covered during the introductory portion of the workshop.

Virtual Machine Requirements

We will provide a Virtual Machine image and configuration (VMware VMX+VMDK) of Ubuntu 12.04. It has been tested under VMware Fusion 4, VMware Player 4 and Oracle VirtualBox 4.1.8. Other hypervisors capable of loading and running a VMX/VMDK virtual machine may work, but we will not be able to debug and troubleshoot. You may download the virtual machine ahead of time as well:

If the host OS is 64 bit:

• https://s3.amazonaws.com/opscode-chef-training/opstrain-vmdk-x86_64.zip

If the host OS is 32 bit:

• https://s3.amazonaws.com/opscode-chef-training/opstrain-vmdk-i386.zip

As we're providing a VM image, the exercises will all assume Ubuntu 12.04 as the platform, with a base server installation that includes OpenSSH running.

Do not make modifications to the machine except as instructed in the workshop, as the system may be in a state that prevents completion

Other virtual machine images or cloud provider instances may work, but you're on your own to get that set up ahead of time.