# Omnibus Client installer open beta

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/omnibus-client-installer-open-beta/2269>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [December 16, 2011, 10:22pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/omnibus-client-installer-open-beta/2269 "2011-12-16T22:22:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bryan\_McLellan1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/bryan_mclellan1/32/426_2.png) [@Bryan\_McLellan1](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Bryan_McLellan1)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 10:22pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/omnibus-client-installer-open-beta/2269/1 "2011-12-16T22:22:36Z")

</div>

We’ve been building and testing a Chef feature for a while now that we  
call Omnibus.

Sometimes getting a good version of Ruby and the right libraries on a  
system can be daunting and makes a difficult Chef install for  
newcomers. Today I’d like to release the Omnibus Client for open beta.  
This includes the latest version of the chef-client and everything you  
need to run it.

Head over to [http://www.opscode.com/chef/install](http://www.opscode.com/chef/install) where we have pull  
down menus for the operating systems we’ve tested it on, and the  
simple instructions for installing it.

You’ll find everything installed in /opt/opscode. If you’re on a  
Redhat or Debian based Linux distribution that we detect, we wrap the  
install in a deb or rpm so you can manage it with your package  
management tools as well. Binaries are symlinked into /usr/bin for  
convenience. You should remove any other versions of Chef you have  
installed first, but you can leave any keys or configuration files  
behind in /etc/chef and the Omnibus Client will pick them up.

There’s a little script included to help set up your configuration on  
fresh hosts:

— Opscode Hosted Chef

# Save a copy of your validation key in a file like ‘validation.pem’

sudo /opt/opscode/setup.sh -v validation.pem -o ORGANIZATION

— Open Source Chef Server

# Save a copy of your validation key in a file like ‘validation.pem’

sudo /opt/opscode/setup.sh -v validation.pem -u [http://chef.example.org](http://chef.example.org)

In both cases you’ll need to change the organization name or the URL.

One big caveat is that because we put everything Chef needs in  
/opt/opscode/embedded, so the instance of Ruby that Chef uses will be  
different than the instance installed on your system, particularly if  
you don’t have a system ruby. Consequently, when you use the  
"gem\_package" resource inside a Chef recipe, this package will be  
installed in the version of Rubygems that comes with Chef. This may  
not be what you expect, but we can’t reliably guess where you Rubygems  
installation is and if you have more than one, which you want us to  
use. So we default to our own installation of Rubygems. Thus, if you  
want a gem installed with gem\_package to your system ruby gems you  
need to provide the gem\_binary attribute like this:

# Install the rake binary for raking things on the system like a raker would.

gem\_package “rake” do  
gem\_binary "/usr/bin/gem"  
end

# Install bundler to the system, any system

gem\_package “bundler” do  
gem\_binary “gem” # System gem  
version "1.0.15"  
only\_if (node[‘platform’] == ‘windows’ ? “where gem” : “which gem”)  
end

We’ll be updating our own cookbooks to cope:  
[http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/COOK-744](http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/COOK-744)

Let us know how it goes, and what you you think. You can file bugs  
against the Chef project on [http://tickets.opscode.com](http://tickets.opscode.com), please add  
"omnibus" as a label so we can find it. Be sure so specify what  
version of the Omnibus Client you are using, which is the Chef version  
but includes an Omnibus specific revision number like “0.10.8-2” would  
be the second revision of the Omnibus build for Chef 0.10.8.

I’m still thinking about where and how to document changes. A wiki  
page may suffice, but we may need a full blown JIRA project.

–  
Bryan McLellan | opscode | technical program manager  
© 206.607.7108 | (t) @btmspox | (b) [http://blog.loftninjas.org](http://blog.loftninjas.org)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sascha\_Bates](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/sascha_bates/32/504_2.png) [@Sascha\_Bates](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Sascha_Bates)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/omnibus-client-installer-open-beta/2269/2 "2011-12-17T01:32:28Z")

</div>

I've used this on various version of Ubuntu and Red Hat (4 and 5) and I  
think it's awesome! I truly appreciate the ease of use it brings to client  
installs.

Sascha

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Bryan McLellan [btm@opscode.com](mailto:btm@opscode.com) wrote:

> We've been building and testing a Chef feature for a while now that we  
> call Omnibus.
> 
> Sometimes getting a good version of Ruby and the right libraries on a  
> system can be daunting and makes a difficult Chef install for  
> newcomers. Today I'd like to release the Omnibus Client for open beta.  
> This includes the latest version of the chef-client and everything you  
> need to run it.
> 
> Head over to [http://www.opscode.com/chef/install](http://www.opscode.com/chef/install) where we have pull  
> down menus for the operating systems we've tested it on, and the  
> simple instructions for installing it.
> 
> You'll find everything installed in /opt/opscode. If you're on a  
> Redhat or Debian based Linux distribution that we detect, we wrap the  
> install in a deb or rpm so you can manage it with your package  
> management tools as well. Binaries are symlinked into /usr/bin for  
> convenience. You should remove any other versions of Chef you have  
> installed first, but you can leave any keys or configuration files  
> behind in /etc/chef and the Omnibus Client will pick them up.
> 
> There's a little script included to help set up your configuration on  
> fresh hosts:
> 
> --- Opscode Hosted Chef
> 
> # Save a copy of your validation key in a file like 'validation.pem'
> 
> sudo /opt/opscode/setup.sh -v validation.pem -o ORGANIZATION
> 
> --- Open Source Chef Server
> 
> # Save a copy of your validation key in a file like 'validation.pem'
> 
> sudo /opt/opscode/setup.sh -v validation.pem -u [http://chef.example.org](http://chef.example.org)
> 
> In both cases you'll need to change the organization name or the URL.
> 
> One big caveat is that because we put everything Chef needs in  
> /opt/opscode/embedded, so the instance of Ruby that Chef uses will be  
> different than the instance installed on your system, particularly if  
> you don't have a system ruby. Consequently, when you use the  
> "gem\_package" resource inside a Chef recipe, this package will be  
> installed in the version of Rubygems that comes with Chef. This may  
> not be what you expect, but we can't reliably guess where you Rubygems  
> installation is and if you have more than one, which you want us to  
> use. So we default to our own installation of Rubygems. Thus, if you  
> want a gem installed with gem\_package to your system ruby gems you  
> need to provide the gem\_binary attribute like this:
> 
> # Install the rake binary for raking things on the system like a raker
> 
> would.  
> gem\_package "rake" do  
> gem\_binary "/usr/bin/gem"  
> end
> 
> # Install bundler to the system, any system
> 
> gem\_package "bundler" do  
> gem\_binary "gem" # System gem  
> version "1.0.15"  
> only\_if (node['platform'] == 'windows' ? "where gem" : "which gem")  
> end
> 
> We'll be updating our own cookbooks to cope:  
> [http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/COOK-744](http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/COOK-744)
> 
> Let us know how it goes, and what you you think. You can file bugs  
> against the Chef project on [http://tickets.opscode.com](http://tickets.opscode.com), please add  
> "omnibus" as a label so we can find it. Be sure so specify what  
> version of the Omnibus Client you are using, which is the Chef version  
> but includes an Omnibus specific revision number like "0.10.8-2" would  
> be the second revision of the Omnibus build for Chef 0.10.8.
> 
> I'm still thinking about where and how to document changes. A wiki  
> page may suffice, but we may need a full blown JIRA project.
> 
> --  
> Bryan McLellan | opscode | technical program manager  
> (c) 206.607.7108 | (t) @btmspox | (b) [http://blog.loftninjas.org](http://blog.loftninjas.org)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Andrea\_Campi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/andrea_campi/32/514_2.png) [@Andrea\_Campi](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Andrea_Campi)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/omnibus-client-installer-open-beta/2269/3 "2011-12-17T15:42:01Z")

</div>

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 11:22 PM, Bryan McLellan [btm@opscode.com](mailto:btm@opscode.com) wrote:

> We've been building and testing a Chef feature for a while now that we  
> call Omnibus.
> 
> Sometimes getting a good version of Ruby and the right libraries on a  
> system can be daunting and makes a difficult Chef install for  
> newcomers. Today I'd like to release the Omnibus Client for open beta.  
> This includes the latest version of the chef-client and everything you  
> need to run it.
> 
> Head over to [http://www.opscode.com/chef/install](http://www.opscode.com/chef/install) where we have pull  
> down menus for the operating systems we've tested it on, and the  
> simple instructions for installing it.

There's something I don't quite get: what's the point of having the pull down?

At the end of the day, it just shows instructions for either  
Unix-derivatives or Windows—wouldn't a radio box work just as well?

Andrea

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bryan\_McLellan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/bryan_mclellan/32/81_2.png) [@Bryan\_McLellan](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Bryan_McLellan)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/omnibus-client-installer-open-beta/2269/4 "2011-12-17T15:46:46Z")

</div>

On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 10:42 AM, Andrea Campi  
[andrea.campi@zephirworks.com](mailto:andrea.campi@zephirworks.com) wrote:

> There's something I don't quite get: what's the point of having the pull down?
> 
> At the end of the day, it just shows instructions for either  
> Unix-derivatives or Windows—wouldn't a radio box work just as well?

The web page has been through a couple redesigns for various reasons.  
I would say it never really got a proper design.

The original idea is that the instructions could vary based on the  
operating system and version. For instance, Ubuntu systems should run  
through "| sudo bash" whereas debian users are more likely to be root  
and the command should just "| bash". Also the instructions originally  
used wget, which isn't everywhere by default so some were switched to  
use curl. Is curl everywhere? I'm not sure.

These items still need work, and I really wanted comments on this page  
before we fully released, so I just shipped what I had been given  
already. There's definitely work to be done on that page.

Bryan

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Burkholder\_Peter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ebca7d/32.png) [@Burkholder\_Peter](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Burkholder_Peter)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/omnibus-client-installer-open-beta/2269/5 "2011-12-17T16:05:53Z")

</div>

Hi,  
On Dec 16, 2011, at 8:32 PM, Sascha Bates wrote:

> I've used this on various version of Ubuntu and Red Hat (4 and 5) and I think it's awesome! I truly appreciate the ease of use it brings to client installs.
> 
> Sascha  
> So, how do I move forward getting this to our RedHat EL4 boxes (since I can't drop off the roof just yet). I only see RHEL5/6 as supported.

Thanks,

## Peter

Peter Burkholder | Sr. System Administrator (consultant)  
AARP | Digital Strategy & Operations | 601 E Street NW | Washington, DC 20049  
[pburkholder@aarp.org](mailto:pburkholder@aarp.org) | aim: peterbtech | w: 202-434-3530 | c: 202-344-7129  
For optimal efficiency, I check email at 2-hour intervals during the workday  
(except when on-call). Please use IM or phone to contact me for urgent matters

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sascha\_Bates](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/sascha_bates/32/504_2.png) [@Sascha\_Bates](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Sascha_Bates)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/omnibus-client-installer-open-beta/2269/6 "2011-12-17T16:44:09Z")

</div>

I did it in June so my memory is sketchy. But I believe I downloaded an  
OS-agnostic version (like a .tgz set) and installed from the command line.  
I also think I had to work some bugs fixes into it, but I don't think it  
was related to RH4 - just an early version of the omnibus.

The client I was at elected to compile their own ruby on RH4 instead of  
using the omnibus at that time, but I did get it working.

You can read the install.sh and see the URL where the omnibus is coming  
from:

url="[http://s3.amazonaws.com/opscode-full-stack/$platform-$platform\_version-$machine/$filename](http://s3.amazonaws.com/opscode-full-stack/$platform-$platform_version-$machine/$filename)"

This page has an xml listing of all the packages:  
[http://s3.amazonaws.com/opscode-full-stack](http://s3.amazonaws.com/opscode-full-stack)

I'm pretty sure I just grabbed one of the existing red hat installs  
for 5.x and was able to get it to work. I was pretty excited when I  
managed, but truthfully I can't remember if I did anything special.

Sorry to be so not-helpful 🙂

Sascha

On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 10:05 AM, Burkholder, Peter [PBurkholder@aarp.org](mailto:PBurkholder@aarp.org)wrote:

> Hi,  
> On Dec 16, 2011, at 8:32 PM, Sascha Bates wrote:
> 
> > I've used this on various version of Ubuntu and Red Hat (4 and 5) and I  
> > think it's awesome! I truly appreciate the ease of use it brings to client  
> > installs.
> > 
> > Sascha  
> > So, how do I move forward getting this to our RedHat EL4 boxes (since I  
> > can't drop off the roof just yet). I only see RHEL5/6 as supported.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> ## Peter
> 
> Peter Burkholder | Sr. System Administrator (consultant)  
> AARP | Digital Strategy & Operations | 601 E Street NW | Washington, DC  
> 20049  
> [pburkholder@aarp.org](mailto:pburkholder@aarp.org) | aim: peterbtech | w: 202-434-3530 | c: 202-344-7129  
> For optimal efficiency, I check email at 2-hour intervals during the  
> workday  
> (except when on-call). Please use IM or phone to contact me for urgent  
> matters

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bryan\_McLellan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/bryan_mclellan/32/81_2.png) [@Bryan\_McLellan](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Bryan_McLellan)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/omnibus-client-installer-open-beta/2269/7 "2011-12-17T17:01:23Z")

</div>

Like Sascha hints, the install.sh is just a script that determines what  
distribution, version and arch you're on, then grabs the appropriate  
tarball (or deb or rpm) from S3.

I don't know about getting it working on RHEL 4. We have separate build  
servers for 5.x and 6.x because of system level differences. Ive never  
tried to get 4.x to work.

If something needs to be changed we could try to do so if it was clear what  
it was.

Bryan  
On Dec 17, 2011 11:06 AM, "Burkholder, Peter" [PBurkholder@aarp.org](mailto:PBurkholder@aarp.org) wrote:

> Hi,  
> On Dec 16, 2011, at 8:32 PM, Sascha Bates wrote:
> 
> > I've used this on various version of Ubuntu and Red Hat (4 and 5) and I  
> > think it's awesome! I truly appreciate the ease of use it brings to client  
> > installs.
> > 
> > Sascha  
> > So, how do I move forward getting this to our RedHat EL4 boxes (since I  
> > can't drop off the roof just yet). I only see RHEL5/6 as supported.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> ## Peter
> 
> Peter Burkholder | Sr. System Administrator (consultant)  
> AARP | Digital Strategy & Operations | 601 E Street NW | Washington, DC  
> 20049  
> [pburkholder@aarp.org](mailto:pburkholder@aarp.org) | aim: peterbtech | w: 202-434-3530 | c: 202-344-7129  
> For optimal efficiency, I check email at 2-hour intervals during the  
> workday  
> (except when on-call). Please use IM or phone to contact me for urgent  
> matters

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Eric\_G\_Wolfe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/13edae/32.png) [@Eric\_G\_Wolfe](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Eric_G_Wolfe)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/omnibus-client-installer-open-beta/2269/8 "2011-12-17T21:43:36Z")

</div>

I have 3 remaining RHEL 4 boxes under Chef management. I should have  
that down to 1 remaining RHEL 4 box by end of year. I will however,  
share my experience running it on RHEL4.

As far as I know RHEL 4 has never been a supported platform for Chef.  
Some of the problems you'll encounter will be the package provider  
defaulting to yum. While the actual package manager is up2date, and  
there is no up2date package provider for Chef. So if you do choose to  
use it on RHEL 4, then you'll need to add the EPEL repo for the 4.x  
release. You'll need a yum package at the least. Can't remember if I  
got a yum RHEL4 package from EPEL, or Dag Wieers' repo. I just have an  
empty yum.conf on RHEL4, so that yum won't return an error code if Chef  
does happen to call it. I do avoid managing packages on RHEL4.  
Instead, I manage resources like users, flat config files, and template.

The other hurdle you may encounter is getting a recent Ruby, and Gem  
binary, on RHEL4. I believe our remaining RHEL4 systems had Chef  
installed by RVM ([http://rvm.beginrescueend.com](http://rvm.beginrescueend.com)). I can't say for  
certain if this was a manual process, or if I used my scripted  
installer. You can find the source code for that scripted installer,  
here: [GitHub - atomic-penguin/chef-fat-installer: chef-client just-in-time installer](https://github.com/atomic-penguin/chef-fat-installer). It should  
work out of the box on RHEL4, but it may not. However, you could modify  
it to run up2date commands, or at the least, derive a manual  
installation process from the code. Using RVM to bootstrap Chef is  
probably frowned on, at least now that we have Omnibus. If you want to  
use Chef to manage resources on RHEL4 there honestly are not a lot of  
well tested options to get Ruby and Gem on your RHEL4 system, in this case.

I hope that helps. In summary, if you can get a Ruby and Gem supported  
by Chef on the RHEL4 box, installing by rubygems is the easiest route  
([http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Installing+Chef+Client+on+Other+Operating+Systems](http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Installing+Chef+Client+on+Other+Operating+Systems)).

On 12/17/2011 11:05 AM, Burkholder, Peter wrote:

> Hi,  
> On Dec 16, 2011, at 8:32 PM, Sascha Bates wrote:
> 
> > I've used this on various version of Ubuntu and Red Hat (4 and 5) and I think it's awesome! I truly appreciate the ease of use it brings to client installs.
> > 
> > Sascha  
> > So, how do I move forward getting this to our RedHat EL4 boxes (since I can't drop off the roof just yet). I only see RHEL5/6 as supported.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> ## Peter
> 
> Peter Burkholder | Sr. System Administrator (consultant)  
> AARP | Digital Strategy& Operations | 601 E Street NW | Washington, DC 20049  
> [pburkholder@aarp.org](mailto:pburkholder@aarp.org) | aim: peterbtech | w: 202-434-3530 | c: 202-344-7129  
> For optimal efficiency, I check email at 2-hour intervals during the workday  
> (except when on-call). Please use IM or phone to contact me for urgent matters