# Chef Infra Client 18.8.9 Released!

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-infra-client-18-8-9-released/24171>\
**Category:** Chef Release Announcements\
**Created:** [August 13, 2025, 1:31pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-infra-client-18-8-9-released/24171 "2025-08-13T13:31:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chef-ci](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/chef-ci/32/2320_2.png) [@chef-ci](https://discourse.chef.io/u/chef-ci)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 1:31pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-infra-client-18-8-9-released/24171/1 "2025-08-13T13:31:25Z")

</div>

We are delighted to announce the availability of version 18.8.9 of Chef Infra Client.

## New features

- We added support for recipes in JSON format. This builds on earlier work that allows you to define recipes in YAML. This provides a low-code syntax for simple use cases. To write recipes in JSON, Chef resources and any user-defined parameters can be added as elements in a resources object, such as the example below:

## Compliance Phase improvements

- We updated the inspec-core and train-core gems. ([#15042](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15042))

## Resource updates

- We added the `environment` property to the `apt_package`, `dnf_package`, `dpkg_package`, `package`, `rpm_package`, and `yum_package` resources. This allows you to customize package installation using environment variables for packages that don’t use preseed files.

- We fixed an idempotency bug when dearmoring keys in the `apt_repository` resource. ([#15056](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15056))

- We fixed a bug with the `apt_repository` resource where it was erroneously accepting empty keys. ([#15043](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15043))

## Bug fixes

- We fixed a bug in the `irb` prompt that caused the cursor to jump. ([#15069](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15069))
- We fixed a bug where Chef Infra Client was not handling Ohai custom plug-ins correctly. The plug-in name would return an `Ohai::Exceptions::AttributeNotFound` error. ([#15115](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15115))
- We fixed the error `NoMethodError: undefined method 'present?' for nil:NilClass` when running `knife bootstrap`. ([#15108](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15108))
- We fixed a bug when loading custom CA certificates on Windows that led to the following SSL error: `error: certificate verify failed (self-signed certificate in certificate chain)`.  
This is due to updating OpenSSL to version 3.0.9 on Chef Infra Client 18.6.2, which broke how Infra Client finds CA certificate files on Windows. ([#15040](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15040))

## Packaging

- We now build packages for Ubuntu 24.04 on x86-64 and ARM64 platforms and no longer support packages for Ubuntu 16.04. ([#15062](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15062))
- We now build packages for Windows Server 2025 on x86\_64 platforms. ([#15165](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15165))

## Security

- Chef Infra Client now supports the openssl Ruby gem version 3.3.0. ([#15147](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15147))
- We updated the uri Ruby gem to 1.0.3. ([#15131](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15131))
- We updated the rack gem in chef-zero because it was vulnerable to a CVE. ([#334](https://github.com/chef/chef-zero/pull/334))
- We updated the json gem to 2.13.2 ([7bc6001](https://github.com/chef/chef/commit/7bc60013646f47fb859e7d571de4d1b226efa07b))
- We updated the thor gem to 1.4.0 ([#15196](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15196)
- We updated chef-zero to update dependencies and fix CVEs. ([#15117](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15117))
- We updated activesupport support in Chef to fix a CVE. ([#15189](https://github.com/chef/chef/pull/15189))
- We updated chef-foundation to 3.2.32 to incorporate the following:
  - nokogiri gem updated to 1.18.9
  - cgi gem bumped to 0.3.7
  - libxml2 updated to 2.13.8
  - libxslt updated to 1.1.43
  - rbs and typeprof bundled gems removed to reduce attack surface
  - OpenSSL 3.2.4 library and executables and OpenSSL 3.1.2 FIPS bump

* * *

## Get the Build

As always, you can download binaries from [chef.io/downloads](https://www.chef.io/downloads/) or by using the `mixlib-install` command-line utility:

```auto
$ mixlib-install download chef -v 18.8.9

```

Alternatively, you can install Chef Infra Client using one of the following command options:

```auto
# In Shell
$ curl https://omnitruck.chef.io/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- -P chef -v 18.8.9
# In Windows Powershell
. { iwr -useb https://omnitruck.chef.io/install.ps1 } | iex

```