• Tell me why! Should I use Chef?
• What is Chef anyway?
• What are Chef's core principles?
• How many types of Chef are there?
• How is it licensed and why?

• New to Chef? Start Here!
• Includes an Architecture Introduction,
• an overview of the Chef concepts and terminology,
• an Introduction to cookbooks, recipes, resources, and roles, and
• an Introduction to Search and Data Bags

• How does Chef run? Understand the architecture
• Understand the authentication and authorization models applied,
• the anatomy of a chef-client run within the architecture,
• architectural components the Chef Client, Chef Server, and Chef Solo,
• interaction with the REST API and more.

• Ready for more in-depth information? Dive into Details
• An in depth exploration of all the features and functions of Chef
• Explore Cookbooks more fully
• Reach into Attributes, Definitions, Environments, Exception and Report Handlers, Resources, Roles, Ohai, and more.

• Ready to start automating? Install Chef!
• Set up your Chef Workstation,
• OS specific installation instructions for Installing Chef Client and Chef Solo, or Installing the Open Source Chef Server.
• Upgrade Instructions
• Use of Vagrant for building and distributing virtualized development environments.

• Manage your Infrastructure: With Chef
• Use of Knife - the powerful Chef command line utility to bootstrap new nodes, launch cloud instances and more.
• The Management Console WebUI Interface,
• Use of Shef for running in an irb session,
• Community Plugins to extend Chef, Ohai and Knife, Spiceweasel for batch-loading, and more.

• Want to broaden your understanding? Read up!
• A Can of Condensed Chef Documentation with a Glossary of terms, technologies and concepts.
• Reference material on the Chef Configuration Settings and Just Enough Ruby for Chef, along with Chef Omnigraffle OmniGraffle & Visio Stencils.
• Release Notes for each version
• All the Getting Started Docs, community member books and reference cards, and more.

• Seeking Instruction? Learn Here!
• Walkthrough guides and webcasts to go step by step through installing 6 common server stacks including a rails stack, a java web stack, and others.
• “How To Guides” including a Guide to Creating A Cookbook and Writing A Recipe, Deploying OpenStack with Chef and more.
• Multiple excellent tutorials put together by Chef community members, and
• Access to training courses and materials.

• Want to Contribute? Join the Community!
• When you use Chef, you join a vibrant community of professionals.
• Here you'll find How to Contribute and Approved Contributors.
• The Release MVPs from the Community,
• The Release Process for Opscode Open Source Projects.
• Feature Proposals that are larger than a more standard request, and more.

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Center Image Modified Center Clickable link Community Events Gather with fellow Chefs and others facing similar challenges - come to a Community Event!

Official Community Events, including: FoodFight - a bi-weekly Chef Community Podcast, Opscode Events, MeetUps and Conferences we're attending, and the inaugural Opscode Community Summit 1 plus #chefconf: the Chef User Conference.

• Seeking Help? You have Support!
• Supportresources for all Chef users - including:
  • Common Errors, and
  • a Troubleshooting and Technical FAQ.
• Real-time interactive community support from IRC, with IRC logs to review previous discussions.
• You can sign up for Chef Mailing Lists
• File an Open Source Ticket
• You can also follow us on Twitter through @opscode
• The Opscode Blog is updated regularly with company and product information, and has an RSS feed for your convenience.

• Periodic maintenance is announced in advance via the Opscode Status site, as are any emergent issues with availability.
• Sign up for @opscode_status for timely notice of any information on Hosted Chef availability and performance.