Configure Chef Workstation and its components

This page describes how to configure Chef Workstation and Knife to connect to Chef Infra Server.

Configure Chef Workstation

To configure Chef Workstation for your environment:

chef-cli config

Configure Knife

Knife requires configuration to connect to Chef Infra Server. You can configure Knife automatically or manually.

Configure Knife automatically

To configure Knife to connect to Chef Infra Server:

knife configure

This command prompts you for your Chef Infra Server credentials and creates the necessary configuration files.

Configure Knife manually

To manually configure Knife to connect to Chef Infra Server:

1. Create the ~/.chef/credentials file:

   mkdir -p ~/.chef
   touch ~/.chef/credentials
   

2. Add your Chef Infra Server credentials to the ~/.chef/credentials file:

   [default]
   chef_server_url = "https://chef-server.example.com/organizations/org-name"
   client_name = "username"
   client_key = "~/.chef/certificate_file.pem"
   

   Replace the following:

   • https://chef-server.example.com/organizations/org-name: Your Chef Infra Server URL and organization name
   • username: Your Chef Infra Server username
   • ~/.chef/certificate_file.pem: Path to your client certificate file

Configure self-signed certificates

If you’ve configured Chef Infra Server with self-signed certificates, fetch and verify them:

1. Fetch the Chef Infra Server SSL certificates:

   knife ssl fetch
   

2. Verify the certificates:

   knife ssl check
   

Next step

• Add a Chef license

More information

• Knife setup documentation
• knife ssl fetch documentation
• knife ssl check documentation