What's the difference between a Chef server, workstation, client, and node?

Question

I'm having a hard time differentiating between a Chef server, workstation, client, and node. More importantly, what's their positions when setting up an initial environment? I've read countless articles and documentations, but I can't seem to understand the different roles and how they play in a completely automated setting. That is, when everything is up and running, how does one update the cookbooks and sync up all the chef managed servers?

I currently have a Chef server setup (on Ubuntu) that successfully running chef-server-webui. Do I need to use my computer as a workstation to setup the repository cookbooks, or do I need another dedicated workstation that will house the repository?

Lastly, if I want to bootstrap instances, what do I need to install on those instances? Do I need to setup chef/knife or something else?

Answer 1

Well, that's the documentation in short.

• A node is any server or virtual server that is configured to be maintained by a chef-client. A node can be physical or cloud-based. A Chef organization comprises any combination of physical and cloud-based nodes. A chef-client runs on each node. Ohai is used to collect data about the system so that it is available to the chef-client during every Chef run.
• Workstation: A workstation is a computer that is configured to run Knife, to synchronize with the Chef repository, and interact with a single Chef Server. The workstation is the location from which most users of Chef will do most of their work..
• The Chef Server acts as a hub for configuration data. The Chef Server stores cookbooks, the policies that are applied to cookbooks, and metadata that describes each registered node in the infrastructure. Nodes use the chef-client to ask the Chef Server for configuration details, such as recipes, templates, and file distributions. The chef-client then does as much of the configuration work as possible on the nodes themselves (and not on the Chef Server). This scalable approach distributes the configuration effort throughout the organization.

when everything is up and running, how does one update the cookbooks and sync up all the chef managed servers?

You have your cookbooks checked out locally on your PC. After changing them, you upload them to the chef-server using knife (or berks) and commit the changes to the Git repo (to have a history of your changes).

Do I need to use my computer as a workstation to setup the repository cookbooks, or do I need another dedicated workstation that will house the repository?

Yes, create an admin user for yourself, which is used by knife on your PC (the workstation) to talk to the server. Knife is the admin tool for chef, so you will install it only on workstations. To login into the web interface, you use your user credentials. (the opposite of knife is chef-client, which downloads the cookbooks and executes them (and configures the node)).

if I want to bootstrap instances, what do I need to install on those instances? Do I need to setup chef/knife or something else?

The bootstrapping process installs the chef-client on the target node, copies the validator file, which allows the client to register at the chef-server and then starts the first run.