SHEF(1) 							    Chef Manual 							   SHEF(1)

NAME

       shef - Interactive Chef Console

SYNOPSIS

       shef [named configuration] (options)

       -S, --server CHEF_SERVER_URL
	      The chef server URL

       -z, --client
	      chef-client mode

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

       -j, --json-attributes JSON_ATTRIBS
	      Load attributes from a JSON file or URL

       -l, --log-level LOG_LEVEL
	      Set the logging level

       -s, --solo
	      chef-solo shef session

       -a, --standalone
	      standalone shef session

       -v, --version
	      Show chef version

       -h, --help
	      Show command options

       When no --config option is specified, shef attempts to load a default configuration file:

       o   If a named configuration is given, shef will load ~/.chef/named configuration/shef.rb

       o   If no named configuration is given shef will load ~/.chef/shef.rb if it exists

       o   Shef falls back to loading /etc/chef/client.rb or /etc/chef/solo.rb if -z or -s options are given and no shef.rb can be found.

       o   The --config option takes precedence over implicit configuration paths.

DESCRIPTION

       shef is an irb(1) (interactive ruby) session customized for Chef. shef serves two primary functions: it provides a means to interact with a
       Chef Server interactively using a convenient DSL; it allows you to define and run Chef recipes interactively.

SYNTAX

       Shef uses irb's subsession feature to provide multiple modes of interaction. In addition to the primary mode which  is  entered	on  start,
       recipe and attributes modes are available.

PRIMARY MODE

       The following commands are available in the primary session:

       help   Prints a list of available commands

       version
	      Prints the Chef version

       recipe Switches to recipe mode

       attributes
	      Switches to attributes mode

       run_chef
	      Initiates a chef run

       reset  reinitializes shef

       echo :on|:off
	      Turns irb's echo function on or off. Echo is on by default.

       tracing :on|:off
	      Turns irb's function tracing feature on or off. Tracing is extremely verbose and expected to be of interest primarily to developers.

       node   Returns the node object for the current host. See knife-node(1) for more information about nodes.

       ohai   Prints the attributes of node

       In  addition to these commands, shef provides a DSL for accessing data on the Chef Server. When working with remote data in shef, you chain
       method calls in the form object type.operation, where object type is in plural form. The following object types are available:

       o   nodes

       o   roles

       o   data_bags

       o   clients

       o   cookbooks

       For each object type the following operations are available:

       object type.all(&block)
	      Loads all items from the server. If the optional code block is given, each item  will  be  passed  to  the  block  and  the  results
	      returned, similar to ruby's Enumerable#map method.

       object type.show(object name)
	      Aliased as object type.load

	      Loads the singular item identified by object name.

       object type.search(query, &block)
	      Aliased as object type.find

	      Runs a search against the server and returns the matching items. If the optional code block is given each item will be passed to the
	      block and the results returned.

	      The query may be a Solr/Lucene format query given as a String, or a Hash of conditions. If a Hash is  given,  the  options  will	be
	      ANDed  together. To join conditions with OR, use negative queries, or any advanced search syntax, you must provide give the query in
	      String form.

       object type.transform(:all|query, &block)
	      Aliased as object type.bulk_edit

	      Bulk edit objects by processing them with the (required) code block. You can edit all objects of the given type by passing the  Sym-
	      bol  :all  as  the  argument,  or  only  a subset by passing a query as the argument. The query is evaluated in the same way as with
	      search.

	      The return value of the code block is used to alter the behavior of transform. If the value returned from the block is nil or false,
	      the object will not be saved. Otherwise, the object is saved after being passed to the block. This behavior can be exploited to cre-
	      ate a dry run to test a data transformation.

RECIPE MODE

       Recipe mode implements Chef's recipe DSL. Exhaustively documenting this DSL is outside the scope of this document. See the following  pages
       in the Chef documentation for more information:

       o   http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Resources

       o   http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Recipes

       Once you have defined resources in the recipe, you can trigger a convergence run via run_chef

EXAMPLES

       o   A "Hello World" interactive recipe

	   chef > recipe
	   chef:recipe > echo :off
	   chef:recipe > file "/tmp/hello_world"
	   chef:recipe > run_chef
	   [Sat, 09 Apr 2011 08:56:56 -0700] INFO: Processing file[/tmp/hello_world] action create ((irb#1) line 2)
	   [Sat, 09 Apr 2011 08:56:56 -0700] INFO: file[/tmp/hello_world] created file /tmp/hello_world
	   chef:recipe > pp ls '/tmp'
	   [".",
	   "..",
	   "hello_world"]

       o   Search for nodes by role, and print their IP addresses

	   chef > nodes.find(:roles => 'monitoring-server') {|n| n[:ipaddress] }
	   => ["10.254.199.5"]

       o   Remove the role obsolete from every node in the system

	   chef > nodes.transform(:all) {|n| n.run_list.delete('role[obsolete]') }
	   => [node[chef098b2.opschef.com], node[ree-woot], node[graphite-dev], node[fluke.localdomain], node[ghost.local], node[kallistec]]

BUGS

       The name shef is clever in print but is confusing when spoken aloud. Pronouncing shef as chef console is an imperfect workaround.

       shef  often does not perfectly replicate the context in which chef-client(8) configures a host, which may lead to discrepancies in observed
       behavior.

       shef has to duplicate much code from chef-client's internal libraries and may become out of sync with the behavior of those libraries.

SEE ALSO

       chef-client(8) knife(1) http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Shef

AUTHOR

       Chef was written by Adam Jacob adam@opscode.com with many contributions from the community. Shef was written by Daniel DeLeo.

DOCUMENTATION

       This manual page was written by Daniel DeLeo dan@opscode.com. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and / or modify this document under
       the terms of the Apache 2.0 License.

CHEF

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

Chef 10.12.0							     June 2012								   SHEF(1)