# Chef server is ignoring /etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb?

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-server-is-ignoring-etc-chef-server-chef-server-rb/5193>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [March 6, 2014, 10:48pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-server-is-ignoring-etc-chef-server-chef-server-rb/5193 "2014-03-06T22:48:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![P\_J\_Reed](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/p_j_reed/32/378_2.png) [@P\_J\_Reed](https://discourse.chef.io/u/P_J_Reed)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 10:48pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-server-is-ignoring-etc-chef-server-chef-server-rb/5193/1 "2014-03-06T22:48:27Z")

</div>

I’m pretty new to Chef, so maybe I’m missing something obvious. I’m setting up  
Chef to manage an MPI cluster on a set of nodes running Ubuntu Linux 12.04. I  
followed the instructions for setting up the open source Chef Server version  
11.0.11, and it seems like everything is fine; I’ve got my head node and worker  
nodes all working as expected.

However, I’d like to stop Chef’s embedded nginx from listening to port 80 on  
the Chef server so that I can run a different service on that port. According  
to [http://docs.opscode.com/config\_rb\_chef\_server.html](http://docs.opscode.com/config_rb_chef_server.html) , I should be able to  
create a file at /etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb containing  
"nginx[‘non\_ssl\_port’] = nil" and then run "sudo chef-server-ctl reconfigure"  
to do so, right?

I’ve done so, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. nginx is still listening  
on port 80, and the output from chef-server-ctl didn’t look like it was parsing  
chef-server.rb or changing anything in the nginx config at all. I’ve tried  
restarting the Chef server and setting miscellaneous other values in there,  
too, but it seems like nothing has any effect.

Am I missing something? Is there a way to tell where Chef thinks it’s loading  
its server config from?

Thanks,  
P. J. Reed

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Mzyk\_OLD2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/mark_mzyk_old2/32/368_2.png) [@Mark\_Mzyk\_OLD2](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Mark_Mzyk_OLD2)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-server-is-ignoring-etc-chef-server-chef-server-rb/5193/2 "2014-03-07T21:47:59Z")

</div>

Hey P.J.,

I looked into this and chef-server.rb isn't being ignored. It looks like  
either we have a bug or our docs are wrong. Instead of setting  
nginx['non\_ssl\_port'] = nil, set it to nginx['non\_ssl\_port'] = false and  
then run chef-server-ctl reconfigure. nil currently causes the defaults  
to be left in place (or put back into place if they had been removed).  
I'll follow up and either get a bug filed or the docs updated, but this  
should move you forward.

And just to give you more information than you likely need, chef  
configures itself with chef (it uses chef-solo). The cookbooks that do  
this are installed by the omnibus installer to  
/opt/chef-server/embedded/cookbooks/chef-server. You can always look  
there and read them to see the default values that will be applied.

You can view the omnibus-chef-server repo and see how everything that  
creates the installer package is put together:  
[GitHub - chef-boneyard/omnibus-chef-server: Deprecated: Omnibus packaging for Opscode Chef Server (OSC 11.x only).](https://github.com/opscode/omnibus-chef-server). This conforms to omnibus  
packaging conventions, so the above mentioned cookbooks are in  
files/chef-server-cookbooks/chef-server in that repo.

Since we're talking about nginx here, the cookbooks will render the  
nginx config to /var/opt/chef-server/nginx/etc/ so you can always look  
there to see what nginx config chef is using.

It's still recommended that you make changes by modifying  
/etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb. Sorry for our mistake and the confusion  
it caused you.

Let me know if that doesn't solve your issue. As I said, I'll follow up  
to make sure either the docs are updated or that we fix a bug that  
causes nil not to work (I suspect it's our docs that are wrong, however).

Thanks,

Mark Mzyk  
Chef Software Engineer

> [preed@swri.org](mailto:preed@swri.org) [mailto:preed@swri.org](mailto:preed@swri.org)  
> March 6, 2014 at 5:48 PM  
> I'm pretty new to Chef, so maybe I'm missing something obvious. I'm  
> setting up  
> Chef to manage an MPI cluster on a set of nodes running Ubuntu Linux  
> 12.04. I  
> followed the instructions for setting up the open source Chef Server  
> version  
> 11.0.11, and it seems like everything is fine; I've got my head node  
> and worker  
> nodes all working as expected.
> 
> However, I'd like to stop Chef's embedded nginx from listening to port  
> 80 on  
> the Chef server so that I can run a different service on that port.  
> According  
> to [http://docs.opscode.com/config\_rb\_chef\_server.html](http://docs.opscode.com/config_rb_chef_server.html) , I should be  
> able to  
> create a file at /etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb containing  
> "nginx['non\_ssl\_port'] = nil" and then run "sudo chef-server-ctl  
> reconfigure"  
> to do so, right?
> 
> I've done so, but it didn't seem to have any effect. nginx is still  
> listening  
> on port 80, and the output from chef-server-ctl didn't look like it  
> was parsing  
> chef-server.rb or changing anything in the nginx config at all. I've tried  
> restarting the Chef server and setting miscellaneous other values in  
> there,  
> too, but it seems like nothing has any effect.
> 
> Am I missing something? Is there a way to tell where Chef thinks it's  
> loading  
> its server config from?
> 
> Thanks,  
> P. J. Reed

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![P\_J\_Reed](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/p_j_reed/32/378_2.png) [@P\_J\_Reed](https://discourse.chef.io/u/P_J_Reed)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-server-is-ignoring-etc-chef-server-chef-server-rb/5193/3 "2014-03-07T21:54:37Z")

</div>

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Hash: SHA256

Aha, that worked. Setting it to false did exactly what I wanted.  
Thank you!

P. J.

On Fri, 7 Mar 2014 16:47:59 -0500  
Mark Mzyk [mmzyk@programmersparadox.com](mailto:mmzyk@programmersparadox.com) wrote:

> Hey P.J.,
> 
> I looked into this and chef-server.rb isn't being ignored. It looks  
> like either we have a bug or our docs are wrong. Instead of setting  
> nginx['non\_ssl\_port'] = nil, set it to nginx['non\_ssl\_port'] = false  
> and then run chef-server-ctl reconfigure. nil currently causes the  
> defaults to be left in place (or put back into place if they had been  
> removed). I'll follow up and either get a bug filed or the docs  
> updated, but this should move you forward.
> 
> And just to give you more information than you likely need, chef  
> configures itself with chef (it uses chef-solo). The cookbooks that  
> do this are installed by the omnibus installer to  
> /opt/chef-server/embedded/cookbooks/chef-server. You can always look  
> there and read them to see the default values that will be applied.
> 
> You can view the omnibus-chef-server repo and see how everything that  
> creates the installer package is put together:  
> [GitHub - chef-boneyard/omnibus-chef-server: Deprecated: Omnibus packaging for Opscode Chef Server (OSC 11.x only).](https://github.com/opscode/omnibus-chef-server). This conforms to  
> omnibus packaging conventions, so the above mentioned cookbooks are  
> in files/chef-server-cookbooks/chef-server in that repo.
> 
> Since we're talking about nginx here, the cookbooks will render the  
> nginx config to /var/opt/chef-server/nginx/etc/ so you can always  
> look there to see what nginx config chef is using.
> 
> It's still recommended that you make changes by modifying  
> /etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb. Sorry for our mistake and the  
> confusion it caused you.
> 
> Let me know if that doesn't solve your issue. As I said, I'll follow  
> up to make sure either the docs are updated or that we fix a bug that  
> causes nil not to work (I suspect it's our docs that are wrong,  
> however).
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mark Mzyk  
> Chef Software Engineer
> 
> > [preed@swri.org](mailto:preed@swri.org) [mailto:preed@swri.org](mailto:preed@swri.org)  
> > March 6, 2014 at 5:48 PM  
> > I'm pretty new to Chef, so maybe I'm missing something obvious. I'm  
> > setting up  
> > Chef to manage an MPI cluster on a set of nodes running Ubuntu  
> > Linux 12.04. I  
> > followed the instructions for setting up the open source Chef  
> > Server version  
> > 11.0.11, and it seems like everything is fine; I've got my head  
> > node and worker  
> > nodes all working as expected.
> > 
> > However, I'd like to stop Chef's embedded nginx from listening to  
> > port 80 on  
> > the Chef server so that I can run a different service on that port.  
> > According  
> > to [http://docs.opscode.com/config\_rb\_chef\_server.html](http://docs.opscode.com/config_rb_chef_server.html) , I should be  
> > able to  
> > create a file at /etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb containing  
> > "nginx['non\_ssl\_port'] = nil" and then run "sudo chef-server-ctl  
> > reconfigure"  
> > to do so, right?
> > 
> > I've done so, but it didn't seem to have any effect. nginx is still  
> > listening  
> > on port 80, and the output from chef-server-ctl didn't look like it  
> > was parsing  
> > chef-server.rb or changing anything in the nginx config at all.  
> > I've tried restarting the Chef server and setting miscellaneous  
> > other values in there,  
> > too, but it seems like nothing has any effect.
> > 
> > Am I missing something? Is there a way to tell where Chef thinks  
> > it's loading  
> > its server config from?
> > 
> > Thanks,  
> > P. J. Reed  
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