Book Image

Configuration Management with Chef-Solo

By : Naveed ur Rahman
Book Image

Configuration Management with Chef-Solo

By: Naveed ur Rahman

Overview of this book

Table of Contents (13 chapters)

Exploring templates


A template is an Embedded Ruby (ERB) file that is used to create configuration files based on variables and logic defined by a cookbook. A template can contain mixed Ruby code or expressions; it provides a great way to manage configuration files on any node.

Templates are used with a template resource, and each resource includes actions, attributes, and file sources. Template resources are very close to file resources; the only difference is that templates are based on Ruby code, and on the other hand, file resources are used to copy files to a particular location.

Templates should have the following two components:

  • A template resource, which instructs the chef-client to perform any action

  • A template file in the templates folder

The folder structure of cookbook templates will look similar to the following:

  • default

  • ubuntu-12.04

  • ubuntu-14.04

If we notice our cookbooks directory, we will see that the templates folder is already created by Knife. Let's complete our recipe and...