The January 2014 Edition.

1. Cooking with Chef on
Microsoft Windows
Julian C. Dunn
Senior Consultant, Chef Software, Inc.
jdunn@getchef.com

2. Chef and Windows Timeline
• May 2011 – Knife plugin for Windows announced
• Oct 2011 – PowerShell, IIS, SQL Server, and Windows cookbooks
• Dec 2011 – Chef Client Installer MSI for Microsoft Windows
• Feb 2012 – Integration of the registry_key resource into core Chef from the
Windows cookbook
• Aug 2013 – Chef 11.6.0 release. PowerShell and Batch scripting integrated into
core Chef. Chef Client released as Windows service
• Aug 2013 - PowerShell Desired State Configuration support announced (for
delivery in 2014)

3. Challenges to Chef on Windows
• No real package manager
• COTS vendors don’t understand automation
• UAC
• WinRM Quotas
• Win32 Redirector
• Not all preferences/state stored in registry

4. Windows < 2012?
• WinRM Memory Quota Hotfix required:
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2842230

5. Automating a .NET App on
Windows

6. Automating a .NET App on Windows
• The app: nopCommerce Shopping
Cart solution (
www.nopcommerce.com)
• ASP.NET with SQL Server backend
• Available through WebPI
• WebPI install assumes a lot,
however
• Full-featured app suitable to show
off Chef resources on Windows

7. Resources Automated in Demo
• Installing Windows Features and Roles
• IIS app pool
• IIS site
• IIS app
• Registry settings
• Deploying files onto the system
• Unzipping files
• Windows filesystem rights management

8. Provisioning with Chef
• Azure plugin for Knife
• Request new VM from Azure API
• Bootstrap it over WinRM
• Install and start Chef
• Register with Chef server
• Run through the “run list”
• Instant infrastructure with one
command

9. Video

10. The Recipe Code

11. nopCommerce Recipe Code: Install
IIS, ASP.NET 4.5
::Chef::Recipe.send(:include, Windows::Helper)
windows_feature 'IIS-WebServerRole' do
action :install
end
# Pre-requisite features for IIS-ASPNET45 that need to be installed first, in this order.
%w{IIS-ISAPIFilter IIS-ISAPIExtensions NetFx3ServerFeatures NetFx4Extended-ASPNET45 IISNetFxExtensibility45}.each do |f|
windows_feature f do
action :install
end
end
windows_feature 'IIS-ASPNET45' do
action :install
end
service "iis" do
service_name "W3SVC"
action :nothing
end
include_recipe "iis::remove_default_site"

12. nopCommerce Recipe Code: Install
nopCommerce
windows_zipfile node['nopcommerce']['approot'] do
source node['nopcommerce']['dist']
action :unzip
not_if {::File.exists?(::File.join(node['nopcommerce']['approot'], "nopCommerce"))}
end
%w{App_Data bin Content ContentImages ContentImagesThumbs ContentImagesUploaded
ContentfilesExportImport Plugins Pluginsbin}.each do |d|
directory win_friendly_path(::File.join(node['nopcommerce']['approot'], 'nopCommerce', d)) do
rights :modify, 'IIS_IUSRS'
end
end
%w{Global.asax web.config}.each do |f|
file win_friendly_path(::File.join(node['nopcommerce']['approot'], 'nopCommerce', f)) do
rights :modify, 'IIS_IUSRS'
end
end

13. Set up IIS Pool, App, etc.
iis_pool node['nopcommerce']['poolname'] do
runtime_version "4.0"
action :add
end
directory node['nopcommerce']['siteroot'] do
rights :read, 'IIS_IUSRS'
recursive true
action :create
end
iis_site 'nopCommerce' do
protocol :http
port 80
path node['nopcommerce']['siteroot']
application_pool node['nopcommerce']['poolname']
action [:add,:start]
end
iis_app 'nopCommerce' do
application_pool node['nopcommerce']['poolname']
path node['nopcommerce']['apppath']
physical_path "#{node['nopcommerce']['approot']}nopCommerce"
action :add
end

14. Other Code You Might Have Noticed
system32_path = node['kernel']['machine'] == 'x86_64' ? 'C:WindowsSysnative' : 'C:WindowsSystem32'
cookbook_file "#{system32_path}oemlogo.bmp" do
source node['windowshacks']['oeminfo']['logofile']
rights :read, "Everyone"
action :create
end
registry_key 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionOEMInformation' do
values [{:name => 'Logo', :type => :string, :data => 'C:WindowsSystem32oemlogo.bmp'},
{:name => 'Manufacturer', :type => :string, :data => node['windowshacks']['oeminfo']
['manufacturer']},
{:name => 'SupportHours', :type => :string, :data => node['windowshacks']['oeminfo']
['supporthours']},
{:name => 'SupportPhone', :type => :string, :data => node['windowshacks']['oeminfo']
['supportphone']},
{:name => 'SupportURL', :type => :string, :data => node['windowshacks']['oeminfo']['supporturl']}]
action :create
end

15. 64

16. The Result

17. Overview of Chef
Resources on Windows

18. Same as UNIX/Linux
• file, remote_file, cookbook_file, template
• directory, remote_directory
• user, group
• mount (can take CIFS paths)
• env
• service
• execute
• ruby_block
• many others...

19. Unique to Windows
• registry_key (new in Chef 11.0.0)
• powershell_script (new in Chef 11.6.0)
• batch (new in Chef 11.6.0)
• Automatic architecture handling (:i386
vs. :x86_64)
• Automatic Windows filesystem redirector
handling (Wow64)
• Long-term roadmap: move more
resources to core and out of ‘windows’
cookbook

20. Windows-Only Cookbooks
• By Chef:
• 7-zip
• iis
• powershell
• sql_server
• webpi
• windows
• wix

21. Windows Community Cookbooks
• ms_dotnet2 / 4 / 45
• windows_ad (by TAMU)
• msoffice
• azure

22. registry_key example
# Set system’s proxy settings to be the same as used for Chef
proxy = URI.parse(Chef::Config[:http_proxy])
registry_key 'HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings'
do
values [{:name => 'ProxyEnable', :type => :reg_dword, :data => 1},
{:name => 'ProxyServer', :data => "#{proxy.host}:#{proxy.port}"},
{:name => 'ProxyOverride', :type => :reg_string, :data => '<local>'}]
action :create
end

23. powershell_script example
powershell_script "rename hostname" do
code <<-EOH
$computer_name = Get-Content env:computername
$new_name = 'test-hostname'
$sysInfo = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_ComputerSystem
$sysInfo.Rename($new_name)
EOH
end

24. Registry Helpers
• Resources like powershell_script are not idempotent by default
• We provide some helpers for checking the registry:
• registry_data_exists?
• registry_get_subkeys
• registry_get_values
• registry_has_subkeys?
• registry_key_exists?
• registry_value_exists?

25. Version Helpers
:windows_8_1?
:windows_server_2012_r2?
:windows_8?
:windows_server_2012?
etc.
:marketing_name
:cluster?
:core?
:datacenter?
• Methods on Chef::ReservedNames::Win32

26. Example Usage
require 'chef/win32/version'
windows_version = Chef::ReservedNames::Win32::Version.new
if (windows_version.windows_server_2008_r2? || windows_version.windows_7?) &&
windows_version.core?
# Server 2008 R2 Core does not come with .NET or Powershell 2.0 enabled
# ... install Powershell 2.0 here
end
• https://github.com/juliandunn/ms_dotnet2/blob/master/re

27. Special File/Directory Handling
• Parameters that don’t make sense
are ignored
• DOMAINuser, DOMAINgroup work
• Filesystem ACLs are different on
Windows
• mode parameter semantics
• rights parameter only for
Windows

28. The ‘windows’ Cookbook
• The windows cookbook includes a number of resources
and providers, and helper libraries.
• See https://github.com/opscode-cookbooks/windows for a
full list
• Highlights:
• windows_auto_run
• windows_feature
• windows_package
• windows_path
• windows_reboot
• windows_zipfile
• Other: windows_printer, windows_printer_port,
windows_task

29. Windows Report Handlers
• Windows cookbook:
• WindowsRebootHandler
• windows_reboot resource
• windows::reboot_handler recipe
• Eventlog cookbook:
• Send Chef output to Windows
Event Log

30. Desired State Configuration (DSC)
•New in Windows 2012R2 / WMF4
•“Chef-like” declarative system
•Compiles to intermediate format (MOF)
•Provides reliable automation hooks into Windows

31. Potential DSC Integration
dsc_resource 'IIS' do
name 'Webserver'
resource :component
action :install
end
• 1:1 mapping DSC resources to Chef resources
• Challenges: DSC transactional, Chef is not
• Thoughts? See me after

32. Windows Roadmap 2014
• Moar resources in core chef-client
• Package (e.g. msi), feature, reboot, etc.
• PowerShell DSC resource integration
• Easy WinRM setup, bootstrap
• Cookbooks: WSUS, AD, Group Policy, etc.
• Miscellaneus: Anonymous Resource RFC
• http://tinyurl.com/anonymous-resource-rfc

33. Testing on Windows

34. As a Host
• Berkshelf, Test-Kitchen, ChefSpec work on Windows
• You need Git Bash or a UNIX-like environment

35. As a Guest
• vagrant-windows
• Monkeypatch to Vagrant to support WinRM
• Works adequately, but fragile
• Packer images to generate Windows VMs
• https://github.com/misheska/basebox-packer
• ServerSpec supports Windows, but limited assertions

36. Questions?
• Much more than what’s shown here!
• Questions?
• Thank you!
• E: jdunn@getchef.com
• W: www.getchef.com
• T: @julian_dunn
• G: github.com/juliandunn