We are excited to announce that Chef Workstation, which we first released in beta at ChefConf 2018, is now generally available. Chef Workstation provides everything you need to get started with Chef in a straightforward one-click installation, and to start delivering infrastructure automation without the need to set up any other software like a Chef client or Chef server. Chef Workstation is the best tool for new users to start with Chef.
The Chef Workstation team gives a big thank you to all the people who helped us find bugs and reached out to us with feedback and improvements.
Starting with Ad-Hoc Configuration Management
Chef Workstation comes with the ability to quickly apply configuration changes to the systems you need to manage directly over SSH or WinRM. Typical scenarios would be installing software, updating configuration files, patching vulnerabilities or rebooting servers.
Using the chef-run command bundled within Chef Workstation, you can execute individual resources against machines:
chef-run [email protected] package nginx action=install
Or even existing Chef content like recipes or cookbooks on one or more servers directly.
chef-run [email protected] /path/to/cookbook/recipe.rb
Chef Workstation as a whole helps marry ad-hoc configuration management with existing convergent approaches that our customers continue to use successfully at scale in large, complex production environments.
Integrate with Chef Automate Out-of-the-Box
Chef Workstation and the chef-run ad-hoc command integrate with Chef Automate out-of-the-box. Even when not using a convergent, agent-based approach to manage machines in your fleet, you can view data from operations generated by Chef Workstation right in your Chef Automate dashboard. This extends auditing and reporting capabilities to the ad-hoc execution model and shows the power of Chef Automate from day one.
Chef Workstation – future of ChefDK
Chef Workstation is the successor product to ChefDK. It is free to use, and also includes all the tools currently packaged in ChefDK. This means current customers can and should upgrade to it today. Current customers who have ChefDK commercial support with Chef Software, Inc. will continue to receive support until its end of life, which has not yet been formally announced. There will be no future major releases of ChefDK (i.e. no ChefDK 4).
Get Started With Chef Workstation
If you encounter bugs, problems, or have suggestions for how we can improve Chef Workstation, please reach out to us at [email protected] or contact your Chef customer success team.
