DevOps Engineering part 7. – Launching production instances in the cloud

In the previous parts of this tutorial we have launched instances (servers) in the cloud, but those were created by Test Kitchen, running on our workstation. Those instances are as good as they can be, but the cookbook did not reside on the Chef server. To launch pre-production and production instances in the cloud, first …

DevOps Engineering part 5. – Create an enterprise cookbook

In this exercise we will create a Chef cookbook for a corporation. It will be robust and include all the necessary elements to be used in a large enterprise. If your company already has established standards, as you progress with this tutorial, copy the appropriate file from an existing cookbook. If this is the first …

DevOps Engineering part 4. – Connect to the Chef server

Find a Chef Server To work in a corporate environment, your organization needs access to a Chef server. To learn Chef and test your cookbooks for free, you can create an account on the “hosted” Chef server, maintained by the Chef company. The plan allows five nodes at a time, so you can even launch a small …

List the installed Windows Features on the Windows server with PowerShell

When you set up a new Windows server and want to make sure all necessary Windows features are installed on it, you can list them in text format. If you want to replicate the configuration of an existing server, just list the features of both servers and compare them in a comparison tool, like Araxis …

Remove Policyfile.rb from your Chef cookbook

When you test your cookbook in Chef Test Kitchen and get the following error, delete the “Policyfile.rb” from your Chef cookbook directory. $$$$$$ You must set your run_list in your policyfile instead of kitchen config. The run_list your config will be ignored. $$$$$$ Ignored run_list: [“recipe[…::…]”] Preparing dna.json Exporting cookbook dependencies from Policyfile /tmp/… Error: Invalid …

Unable to satisfy the following requirements error message in Chef Test Kitchen

When Berkshelf in the Chef Test Kitchen cannot resolve the cookbook dependencies, it displays the following error message during converge: Unable to satisfy the following requirements To help Berks to start a fresh calculation, delete the Berksfile.lock file and enter the following into the command window: berks install

DevOps Engineering part 2. – Create and test your first cookbook in 5 minutes

In the first part of the series, Beginner’s Guide to DevOps Engineering Part 1. we have already installed the DevOps development tools. Create and test your first cookbook in 5 minutes  Set up the Chef working folder Create a folder for the Chef development on Mac ~/Chef on Windows C:\Chef In the Chef folder create a sub-folder …

Beginner’s Guide to DevOps Engineering part 1.

DevOps engineering (Release engineering) is a relatively new profession. There is a very high demand for experienced DevOps engineers, because more and more large corporations want to migrate their data centers into the Cloud. In this series I will introduce you to the tools of the trade through the development of a Chef cookbook. The …

Enable file sharing on Windows servers in Amazon Web Services (AWS)

When you create an EC2 instance in Amazon Web Services (AWS) the security group (firewall) blocks all ports that are not explicitly opened. To make file sharing possible on Windows servers, open the following ports in the security group of the server: TCP 139 TCP 445