KNIFE(1)							    Chef Manual 							  KNIFE(1)

NAME

       knife - Chef Server API client utility

SYNOPSIS

       knife sub-command [argument...] (options)

DESCRIPTION

       Knife is a command-line utility used to manage data on a Chef server through the HTTP(S) API. Knife is organized into groups of subcommands
       centered around the various object types in Chef. Each category of subcommand is documented in its own manual page. Available topics are:

       o   bootstrap

       o   client

       o   configure

       o   cookbook-site

       o   cookbook

       o   data-bag

       o   environment

       o   exec

       o   index

       o   node

       o   recipe

       o   role

       o   search

       o   ssh

       o   status

       o   tag

       If the knife manuals are in your MANPATH, you can access help for the above topics using man knife-TOPIC; otherwise, you can view the docu-
       mentation using knife help TOPIC.

OPTIONS

       -s, --server-url URL
	      Chef Server URL, corresponds to Chef::Config chef_server_url.

       -k, --key KEY
	      API Client Key, corresponds to Chef::Config client_key.

       -c, --config CONFIG
	      The configuration file to use

       -E, --environment ENVIRONMENT
	      Set the Chef environment

       -e, --editor EDITOR
	      Set the editor to use for interactive commands

       -F, --format FORMAT
	      Which format to use for output. See FORMATS for details.

       -V, --verbose
	      More verbose output. Use twice for max verbosity

       -d, --disable-editing
	      Do not open EDITOR, just accept the data as is

       -u, --user USER
	      API Client Username, corresponds to Chef::Config node_name.

       -p, --print-after
	      Show the data after a destructive operation

       -v, --version
	      Show chef version

       -y, --yes
	      Say yes to all prompts for confirmation

       --defaults
	      Accept default values for all questions

       --[no-]color
	      Use colored output. Color enabled by default.

       -h, --help
	      Show the available options for a command.

SUB-COMMANDS
       Sub-commands  that  operate on the basic Chef data types are structured as NOUN verb NOUN (options). For all data types, the following com-
       mands are available:

       o   create (create)

       o   list and show (read)

       o   edit (update)

       o   delete (destroy)

       Knife also includes commands that take actions other than displaying or modifying data on the Chef Server, such as knife-ssh(1).

CONFIGURATION

       The knife configuration file is a Ruby DSL to set configuration parameters for Knife's GENERAL OPTIONS. The default location for the config
       file  is  ~/.chef/knife.rb.  If	managing  multiple  Chef  repositories,  per-repository  config  files	can  be  created. The file must be
       .chef/knife.rb in the current directory of the repository.

       If the config file exists, knife uses these settings for GENERAL OPTIONS defaults.

       o   node_name: User or client identity (i.e., name) to use for authenticating requests to the Chef Server.

       o   client_key: Private key file to authenticate to the Chef server. Corresponds to the -k or --key option.

       o   chef_server_url: URL of the Chef server. Corresponds to the -s or --server-url option. This is requested from  the  user  when  running
	   this sub-command.

       o   cache_type:	The  type  of cache to use. Default is BasicFile. This can be any type of Cache that moneta supports: BasicFile, Berkeley,
	   Couch, DataMapper, File, LMC, Memcache, Memory, MongoDB, Redis, Rufus, S3, SDBM, Tyrant, Xattr, YAML.

       o   cache_options: Specifies various options to use for caching. These options are dependent on the cache_type.

       o   validation_client_name: Specifies the name of the client used to validate new clients.

       o   validation_key: Specifies the private key file to use when bootstrapping new hosts. See knife-client(1) for more information about  the
	   validation client.

       o   cookbook_copyright,	cookbook_email, cookbook_license, readme_format Used by knife cookbook create sub-command to specify the copyright
	   holder, maintainer email, license and readme format (respectively) for new cookbooks. The copyright holder is listed as the	maintainer
	   in  the  cookbook's	metadata  and as the Copyright in the comments of the default recipe. The maintainer email is used in the cookbook
	   metadata. The license determines what preamble to put in the comment of the default recipe, and is listed as the license in	the  cook-
	   book metadata. Currently supported licenses are "apachev2" and "none". Any other values will result in an empty license in the metadata
	   (needs to be filled in by the author), and no comment preamble in the default recipe. Currently  supported  readme  formats	are  "md",
	   "mkd", "txt", and "rdoc". Any other value will result in an unformatted README.

FILES

       ~/.chef/knife.rb

       Ruby DSL configuration file for knife. See CONFIGURATION.

FORMATS

       The  amount of content displayed and the output format are modified by the --format option. If no alternate format is selected, the default
       is summary.

       Valid formats are:

       summary
	      displays the node in a custom, summarized format (default)

       text   displays the node data in its entirety using the colorized tree display

       json   displays the node in JSON format

       yaml   displays the node in YAML format

       pp     displays the node using Ruby's pretty printer.

       For brevity, only the first character of the format is required, for example, -Fj will produce JSON format output.

CHEF WORKFLOW

       When working with Chef and Knife in the local repository, the recommended workflow outline looks like:

       o   Create repository. A skeleton sample is provided at http://github.com/opscode/chef-repo/.

       o   Configure knife, see CONFIGURATION.

       o   Download cookbooks from the Opscode cookbooks site, see COOKBOOK SITE SUB-COMMANDS.

       o   Or, create new cookbooks, see cookbook create sub-command.

       o   Commit changes to the version control system. See your tool's documentation.

       o   Upload cookbooks to the Chef Server, see COOKBOOK SUB-COMMANDS.

       o   Launch instances in the Cloud, OR provision new hosts; see CLOUD COMPUTING SUB-COMMANDS and BOOTSTRAP SUB-COMMANDS.

       o   Watch Chef configure systems!

       A note about git: Opscode and many folks in the Chef community use git, but it is not required, except in the case  of  the  cookbook  site
       vendor  sub-command, as it uses git directly. Version control is strongly recommended though, and git fits with a lot of the workflow para-
       digms.

EXAMPLES

ENVIRONMENT

       EDITOR The text editor to use for editing data. The --editor option takes precedence over this  value,  and  the  --disable-editing  option
	      supresses data editing entirely.

SEE ALSO

       chef-client(8) chef-server(8) shef(1)

       knife-bootstrap(1)  knife-client(1)  knife-configure(1)	knife-cookbook-site(1)	knife-cookbook(1)  knife-data-bag(1)  knife-environment(1)
       knife-exec(1) knife-index(1) knife-node(1) knife-recipe(1) knife-role(1) knife-search(1) knife-ssh(1) knife-tag(1)

       Complete Chef documentation is available online: http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home/

       JSON is JavaScript Object Notation http://json.org/

       SOLR is an open source search engine. http://lucene.apache.org/solr/

       git(1) is a version control system http://git-scm.com/

       This manual page was generated from Markdown with ronn(1) http://rtomayko.github.com/ronn/ronn.1.html

AUTHOR

       Chef was written by Adam Jacob adam@opscode.com of Opscode (http://www.opscode.com), with contributions from the community.

DOCUMENTATION

       This manual page was written by Joshua Timberman joshua@opscode.com.

LICENSE

       Both Chef and  this  documentation  are	released  under  the  terms  of  the  Apache  2.0  License.  You  may  view  the  license  online:
       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html	On  some  systems,  the  complete  text  of  the  Apache  2.0  License	may  be  found	in
       /usr/share/common-licenses/Apache-2.0.

CHEF

       Knife is distributed with Chef. http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home

Chef 10.12.0							     June 2012								  KNIFE(1)