This document is focused on users who wish to get the latest development version of Chef installed for testing, or for the latest and greatest features that haven't been officially released yet. Developers who wish to contribute to the project are encouraged to read the README.rdoc in the GitHub repository.
 | Version Numbering Style Note we follow Linux kernel-style versioning. If the patch-level version is odd, its a 'dev' release, as installing from HEAD is certainly 'dev'. |
Requirements
First, you'll want to designate a system for deployment. This is the place where you'll clone the repository and create the gems. It can be your local workstation, or it can be the Chef Server.
- Git - the source is on GitHub, so you'll need to have Git installed for your platform.
- RubyGems - we have Rake tasks for generating and installing the gems, and these instructions should work anywhere with RubyGems.
- Rake - we like Rake, and use it liberally, install the rake gem.
- RSpec - we do specs in rspec, install the rspec gem.
- Cucumber - we do feature tests with cucumber, install the cucumber gem.
 | Ubuntu Git Package Ubuntu's git package to actually get usable git binaries installed is 'git-core', not 'git'. |
| Don't need RDoc and Ri? By default, Gems install with the RDoc and Ri documentation available. You can disable this for gems you install by adding "gem: --no-rdoc --no-ri" to ~/.gemrc. This will save time on installation, too. |
Git Repositories
Clone the ohai and chef repositories fresh from github. If you want the latest and greatest from Chef, you probably want the same from Ohai. If you're not that bleeding edge, skip Ohai.
Install Ohai
The install task for Ohai will build and install the Gem.
Install mixlib
You can either install the gems from a local git repository (documented below) or simply install the gems from the opscode repository if you don't plan on working on the mixlib components.
Install Server
On a chef-server, you should install chef, chef-server and chef-server-slice all at once:
Due to bug CHEF-166, the merb-core dependency isn't picked up correctly, so it needs to be installed separately.
Install Clients
For a chef-client, just install the 'client' gem.
Configure Chef
Head back to the Installation page for configuring the server and configuring clients.
Comments (1)
Dec 20
Robert J. Berger says:
Looks like gemcutter jeweler are also prerequisites to do a rake install for the...Looks like gemcutter jeweler are also prerequisites to do a rake install for the server. Got the following message:
So before you do the rake install for the server: