a basic NGINX cookbook chef
Tags: nginx, devops, server, linux
Published: 2020-10-17 03:39:50

Ok, this is how create a simple nginx cookbook for <a href="https://www.chef.io/chef/" target="_blank">Chef</a>

For this example I don’t use chef-server, but i work directly on the machine. In my case the machine is a Vagrant VM based on Ubuntu/xenial64, but i think that you can use a VPS or Cloud service and others Linux OS.

As first thing to do, we must install ChefDK on our machine:

```
curl https://omnitruck.chef.io/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- -P chefdk -c stable
```

Then we have to create a folder called cookbooks where we will go to insert our cookbooks:
```
mkdir cookbooks
```

inside the cookbooks folder we create our first cookbook named mynginx:
```
cd cookbooks
```
```
chef generate cookbook mynginx
```

Edit the file default.rb in in mynginx/recipes/default.rb
```
package 'git'
package 'tree'

package 'nginx' do
  action :install
end


service 'nginx' do
  action [ :enable, :start ]
end


cookbook_file "/var/www/html/index.html" do
  source "index.html"
  mode "0644"
end


template "/etc/nginx/nginx.conf" do   
  source "nginx.conf.erb"
  notifies :reload, "service[nginx]"
end
```

from inside the mynginx folder I must generate a file index.html:
```
chef generate file index.html
```

edit the file index.html in files/default/index.html
```
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Hello there</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>This is a test</h1>
    <p>Please work!</p>
  </body>
</html>
```

create a templates named nginx.conf:
```
chef generate template nginx.conf
```

edit the file nginx.conf.erb in templates/nginx.conf.erb and insert your custom configuration of nginx.
```
user www-data;
worker_processes auto;
pid /run/nginx.pid;

events {
	worker_connections 768;
	# multi_accept on;
}

http {

	##
	# Basic Settings
	##

	sendfile on;
	tcp_nopush on;
	tcp_nodelay on;
	keepalive_timeout 65;
	types_hash_max_size 2048;
	# server_tokens off;

	# server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
	# server_name_in_redirect off;

	include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
	default_type application/octet-stream;

	##
	# SSL Settings
	##

	ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; # Dropping SSLv3, ref: POODLE
	ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

	##
	# Logging Settings
	##

	access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
	error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

	##
	# Gzip Settings
	##

	gzip on;
	gzip_disable "msie6";

	# gzip_vary on;
	# gzip_proxied any;
	# gzip_comp_level 6;
	# gzip_buffers 16 8k;
	# gzip_http_version 1.1;
	# gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;

	##
	# Virtual Host Configs
	##

	include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
	include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}


#mail {
#	# See sample authentication script at:
#	# http://wiki.nginx.org/ImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript
# 
#	# auth_http localhost/auth.php;
#	# pop3_capabilities "TOP" "USER";
#	# imap_capabilities "IMAP4rev1" "UIDPLUS";
# 
#	server {
#		listen     localhost:110;
#		protocol   pop3;
#		proxy      on;
#	}
# 
#	server {
#		listen     localhost:143;
#		protocol   imap;
#		proxy      on;
#	}
#}
```  
now you can launch chef-client in local mode for install or update your machine:
```
sudo chef-client -z --runlist "mynginx"