#Chef Blueprint: linux_box

##Description

A Chef Blueprint for a Linux (base) box/host.

##Requirements

• Chef 0.10.10 or higher (earlier versions may work with some cookbooks/recipes)
• A Linux host or guest environment
• Vagrant 1.2 or higher (if using Vagrant)
• Git (if checking out the source from GitHub)

##Usage

See the Quick Start below to get started.

###Cookbooks

The following core cookbooks are included:

• cron
• ntp
• postfix
• resolver
• sudo
• system

Additional/depends cookbooks:

• apt

See the Cheffile.lock for details on their upstream sources.

###Chef Attributes

See the share/chef folder for examples on attribute usage using a node.json.

TODO: guide on main attributes and their usage

##Quick Start

###VirtualBox with Vagrant

####Install VirtualBox

Follow the VirtualBox (or your OS/distribution) documentation to install VirtualBox if not already installed, see https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Documentation

####Install Vagrant

Follow the Vagrant (or your OS/distribution) documentation to install Vagrant (latest version recommended), see http://docs.vagrantup.com/v2/installation/index.html

####Install Librarian for Chef

$ gem install librarian-chef --no-rdoc --no-ri

####Clone the linux_box Chef Blueprint

$ mkdir -p ~/src/github/chef-blueprints
$ cd ~/src/github/chef-blueprints
$ git clone https://github.com/chef-blueprints/linux_box.git
$ cd linux_box

Or alternatively, download and extract the zip https://github.com/chef-blueprints/linux_box/archive/master.zip

####Fetch the cookbooks with Librarian

$ librarian-chef install

####Setup a Vagrantfile

Copy the default Vagrantfile from share/vagrant:

$ cp -v share/vagrant/Vagrantfile.default Vagrantfile

####Setup node.json

Copy the default node.json from share/chef to get started using a basic run_list and set of node attributes.

$ cp -v share/chef/node.json.default node.json

####Run with Vagrant

Already up'd a linux_box?

#vagrant status                   # check vm status
#vagrant reload                   # reload the vm
#vagrant provision                # (re-)provision the vm
#vagrant suspend                  # suspend the vm
#vagrant halt                     # power down the vm
#vagrant destroy                  # destroy the vm
#vagrant box remove linux_box     # remove the box

#####Run the virtual machine

Add a new box and up it (default in Vagrantfile is Debian 7.10, Ubuntu 12.04 is also tested and supported).

Vagrant will automatically add a new box per the Vagrantfile if not already created (including download).

$ vagrant up

Need debug?

$ VAGRANT_LOG=debug vagrant up

This uses the Vagrantfile and node.json (for the Chef Solo provisioning) residing in the root of the repository, copied above.

###Chef Solo

Using the Vagrant/VirtualBox process above is recommended for desktop/workstations users and will provide an operational Linux box, out-of-box. The instructions below demonstrate usage with Chef Solo standalone. Commands are relative the root of the repository.

# chef-solo -c share/chef/solo.rb

By default this uses the node.json. You can easily switch the JSON attributes used with another example:

# chef-solo -c share/chef/solo.rb -j /etc/chef/node.json

Its also possible to run with the cookbooks source as remote. This is handy because no Git checkout is needed:

# chef-solo -r https://github.com/chef-blueprints/linux_box/tarball/master

And with a specific tag such as 0.0.1:

# chef-solo -r https://github.com/rightscale-blueprints/linux_box/tarball/0.0.1

For more information on using Chef Solo, see http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Chef+Solo

###RightScale

TODO

##Using Librarian

###Updating cookbooks

Set this environment variable to strip .git from each cookbook checkout:

$ export LIBRARIAN_CHEF_INSTALL__STRIP_DOT_GIT=1

To update a cookbook, for example, sudo:

$ librarian-chef update sudo

To cleanly re-fetch all the cookbooks in cookbooks/ per the Cheffile, run the following:

$ rm Cheffile.lock; librarian-chef install --clean

For more information on usage, see https://github.com/applicationsonline/librarian-chef

##Errata

TODO: MANIFEST file.

##License and Author

Author:: Chris Fordham (<chris [at] fordham [hyphon] nagy [dot] id [dot] au>)

Copyright 2013, Chris Fordham

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