chef-user

Description

A convenient Chef LWRP to manage user accounts and SSH keys. This is not the Opscode users cookbook.

• Github: https://github.com/fnichol/chef-user
• Opscode Community Site: http://community.opscode.com/cookbooks/user

Usage

Simply include recipe[user] in your run_list and the user_account resource will be available.

To use recipe[user::data_bag], include it in your run_list and have a data bag called "users" with an item like the following:

{
  "id"        : "hsolo",
  "comment"   : "Han Solo",
  "home"      : "/opt/hoth/hsolo",
  "ssh_keys"  : ["123...", "456..."]
}

or a user to be removed:

{
  "id"      : "lando",
  "action"  : "remove"
}

The data bag recipe will iterate through a list of usernames defined in node['users'] (by default) and attempt to pull in the user's information from the data bag item. In other words, having:

node['users'] = ['hsolo']

will set up the hsolo user information and not use the lando user information.

Requirements

Chef

Tested on 0.10.8 but newer and older version should work just fine. File an issue if this isn't the case.

Platform

The following platforms have been tested with this cookbook, meaning that the recipes run on these platforms without error:

• ubuntu
• debian
• mac_os_x

Cookbooks

There are no external cookbook dependencies.

Installation

Depending on the situation and use case there are several ways to install this cookbook. All the methods listed below assume a tagged version release is the target, but omit the tags to get the head of development. A valid Chef repository structure like the Opscode repo is also assumed.

From the Opscode Community Platform

To install this cookbook from the Opscode platform, use the knife command:

knife cookbook site install user

Using Librarian-Chef

Librarian-Chef is a bundler for your Chef cookbooks. Include a reference to the cookbook in a Cheffile and run librarian-chef install. To install Librarian-Chef:

gem install librarian
cd chef-repo
librarian-chef init

To use the Opscode platform version:

echo "cookbook 'user'" >> Cheffile
librarian-chef install

Or to reference the Git version:

cat >> Cheffile <<END_OF_CHEFFILE
cookbook 'user',
  :git => 'git://github.com/fnichol/chef-user.git', :ref => 'v0.3.0'
END_OF_CHEFFILE
librarian-chef install

Using knife-github-cookbooks

The knife-github-cookbooks gem is a plugin for knife that supports installing cookbooks directly from a GitHub repository. To install with the plugin:

gem install knife-github-cookbooks
cd chef-repo
knife cookbook github install fnichol/chef-user/v0.3.0

As a Git Submodule

A common practice (which is getting dated) is to add cookbooks as Git submodules. This is accomplishes like so:

cd chef-repo
git submodule add git://github.com/fnichol/chef-user.git cookbooks/user
git submodule init && git submodule update

Note: the head of development will be linked here, not a tagged release.

As a Tarball

If the cookbook needs to downloaded temporarily just to be uploaded to a Chef Server or Opscode Hosted Chef, then a tarball installation might fit the bill:

cd chef-repo/cookbooks
curl -Ls https://github.com/fnichol/chef-user/tarball/v0.3.0 | tar xfz - && \
  mv fnichol-chef-user-* user

Recipes

default

This recipe is a no-op and does nothing.

default

Processes a list of users with data drawn from a data bag. The default data bag is users and the list of user account to create on this node is set on node['users'].

Attributes

home_root

The default parent path of a user's home directory. Each resource can override this value which varies by platform. Generally speaking, the default value is "/home".

default_shell

The default user shell given to a user. Each resource can override this value which varies by platform. Generally speaking, the default value is "/bin/bash".

manage_home

Whether of not to manage the home directory of a user by default. Each resource can override this value. The are 2 valid states:

• "true", true, or "yes": will manage the user's home directory.
• "false", false, or "no": will not manage the user's home directory.

The default is true.

create_user_group

Whether or not to to create a group with the same name as the user by default. Each resource can override this value. The are 2 valid states:

• "true", true, or "yes": will create a group for the user by default.
• "false", false, or "no": will not create a group for the user by default.

The default is true.

ssh_keygen

Whether or not to generate an SSH keypair for the user by default. Each resource can override this value. There are 2 valid states:

• "true", true, or "yes": will generate an SSH keypair when the account is created.
• "false", false, or "no": will not generate an SSH keypair when the account is created.

The default is true.

data_bag_name

The data bag name containing a group of user account information. This is used by the data_bag recipe to use as a database of user accounts.

The default is "users".

user_array_node_attr

The node attributes containing an array of users to be managed. If a nested hash in the node's attributes is required, then use a / between subhashes. For example, if the users' array is stored in node['system']['accounts']), then set node['user']['user_array_node_attr'] to "system/accounts".

The default is "users".

Resources and Providers

user_account

Note: in order to use the password attribute, you must have the ruby-shadow gem installed. On Debian/Ubuntu you can get this by installing the "libshadow-ruby1.8" package.

Actions

Action	Description	Default
create	Create the user, its home directory, .ssh/authorized_keys, and .ssh/{id_dsa,id_dsa.pub}.	Yes
remove	Remove the user account.
modify	Modiy the user account.
manage	Manage the user account.
lock	Lock the user's password.
unlock	Unlock the user's password.

Attributes

Attribute	Description	Default Value
username	Name attribute: The name of the user.	nil
comment	Gecos/Comment field.	nil
uid	The numeric user id.	nil
gid	The primary group id.	nil
home	Home directory location.	"#{node['user']['home_root']}/#{username}
shell	The login shell.	node['user']['default_shell']
password	Shadow hash of password.	nil
system_user	Whether or not to create a system user.	false
manage_home	Whether or not to manage the home directory.	true
create_group	Whether or not to to create a group with the same name as the user.	node['user']['create_group']
ssh_keys	A String or Array of SSH public keys to populate the user's .ssh/authorized_keys file.	[]
ssh_keygen	Whether or not to generate an SSH keypair for the user.	node['user']['ssh_keygen']

Examples

Creating a User Account

user_account 'hsolo' do
  comment   'Han Solo'
  ssh_keys  ['3dc348d9af8027df7b9c...', '2154d3734d609eb5c452...']
  home      '/opt/hoth/hsolo'
end

Locking a User Account

user_account 'lando' do
  action  :lock
end

Removing a User account

user_account 'obiwan' do
  action  :remove
end

Development

• Source hosted at GitHub
• Report issues/Questions/Feature requests on GitHub Issues

Pull requests are very welcome! Make sure your patches are well tested. Ideally create a topic branch for every separate change you make.

License and Author

Author:: [Fletcher Nichol][fnichol] (fnichol@nichol.ca)

Copyright 2011, Fletcher Nichol

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 limitations under the License.