# Having a problem with HA Chef

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/having-a-problem-with-ha-chef/2578>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [March 20, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/having-a-problem-with-ha-chef/2578 "2012-03-20T22:43:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Thor\_Newman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dbc845/32.png) [@Thor\_Newman](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Thor_Newman)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/having-a-problem-with-ha-chef/2578/1 "2012-03-20T22:43:32Z")

</div>

Hello everyone,

Although Chef is working fine on a single server I’m having some difficulty  
making an “HA” chef (per this support page:  
[http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Scalability+and+High+Availability](http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Scalability+and+High+Availability))

Platform / Version info: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS / Chef 0.10.8

- Have 2 chef servers: chef2, chef3

- chef2 has a number of cookbooks, roles, data\_bags, etc already working & I  
just want to mirror this onto chef3

- We have local HA NFS cluster so wanted to use that instead of DRDB to share  
CouchDB, SOLR, and so forth

I mounted these directories NFS on chef3 from chef2 as I figured this would  
make them almost identical…

/var/lib/couchdb  
/var/lib/chef  
/var/cache/chef  
/var/chef

Problems / Questions

- I must be missing something because the nodes, cookbooks, data\_bags, etc on  
chef2 are not present on chef3 and I rather thought they would be…

- I realize because the servers are different I’ll have client management  
problems after a failover since the /etc/ directories are different, but if I  
make them the same chef3 has authentication problems with itself because it’s  
key is chef2’ (so chef server and chef-server-webui have startup problems)

- What should I be doing differently to make chef3 mirror chef2?

Any help is appreciated as HA chef seems fairly manual at mo.

Thanks List!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ranjib\_Dey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ranjib\_Dey](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Ranjib_Dey)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 2:58am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/having-a-problem-with-ha-chef/2578/2 "2012-03-21T02:58:39Z")

</div>

couchdb versions are same? you should not have client management problems,  
as the public keys for individual client is stored inside couch only.

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 4:13 AM, [thor.newman@dominionmarinemedia.com](mailto:thor.newman@dominionmarinemedia.com)wrote:

> Hello everyone,
> 
> Although Chef is working fine on a single server I'm having some difficulty  
> making an "HA" chef (per this support page:  
> [http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Scalability+and+High+Availability](http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Scalability+and+High+Availability))
> 
> Platform / Version info: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS / Chef 0.10.8
> 
> - Have 2 chef servers: chef2, chef3
> 
> - chef2 has a number of cookbooks, roles, data\_bags, etc already working &  
> I  
> just want to mirror this onto chef3
> 
> - We have local HA NFS cluster so wanted to use that instead of DRDB to  
> share  
> CouchDB, SOLR, and so forth
> 
> I mounted these directories NFS on chef3 from chef2 as I figured this would  
> make them almost identical...
> 
> /var/lib/couchdb  
> /var/lib/chef  
> /var/cache/chef  
> /var/chef
> 
> Problems / Questions
> 
> - I must be missing something because the nodes, cookbooks, data\_bags, etc  
> on  
> chef2 are not present on chef3 and I rather thought they would be...
> 
> - I realize because the servers are different I'll have client management  
> problems after a failover since the /etc/ directories are different, but  
> if I  
> make them the same chef3 has authentication problems with itself because  
> it's  
> key is chef2' (so chef server and chef-server-webui have startup problems)
> 
> - What should I be doing differently to make chef3 mirror chef2?
> 
> Any help is appreciated as HA chef seems fairly manual at mo.
> 
> Thanks List!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tetsu\_soh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@tetsu\_soh](https://discourse.chef.io/u/tetsu_soh)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 12:56pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/having-a-problem-with-ha-chef/2578/3 "2012-03-21T12:56:44Z")

</div>

Hello,

Interesting. I am setting up HA Chef too.

I think, the client keys for web UI should be different. But anything  
else, should be the same (on NFS).

I wonder is it possible to set up 2 chef server in active-active way.

Regards,  
Tetsu

On 3/21/12 7:43 AM, [thor.newman@dominionmarinemedia.com](mailto:thor.newman@dominionmarinemedia.com) wrote:

> Hello everyone,
> 
> Although Chef is working fine on a single server I'm having some difficulty  
> making an "HA" chef (per this support page:  
> [http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Scalability+and+High+Availability](http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Scalability+and+High+Availability))
> 
> Platform / Version info: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS / Chef 0.10.8
> 
> - Have 2 chef servers: chef2, chef3
> 
> - chef2 has a number of cookbooks, roles, data\_bags, etc already working& I  
> just want to mirror this onto chef3
> 
> - We have local HA NFS cluster so wanted to use that instead of DRDB to share  
> CouchDB, SOLR, and so forth
> 
> I mounted these directories NFS on chef3 from chef2 as I figured this would  
> make them almost identical...
> 
> /var/lib/couchdb  
> /var/lib/chef  
> /var/cache/chef  
> /var/chef
> 
> Problems / Questions
> 
> - I must be missing something because the nodes, cookbooks, data\_bags, etc on  
> chef2 are not present on chef3 and I rather thought they would be...
> 
> - I realize because the servers are different I'll have client management  
> problems after a failover since the /etc/ directories are different, but if I  
> make them the same chef3 has authentication problems with itself because it's  
> key is chef2' (so chef server and chef-server-webui have startup problems)
> 
> - What should I be doing differently to make chef3 mirror chef2?
> 
> Any help is appreciated as HA chef seems fairly manual at mo.
> 
> Thanks List!