Chef Interview Questions and Answers
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Best Chef Interview Questions and Answers
What’s your next move towards your career? Are you planning to attend a Chef interview shortly? Then don’t get confused, make use of our top 50 Chef Interview Questions and Answers to prepare yourself to attend the interview more confidently. We have covered all the Chef topics like Chef-client, Chef-server, Chef Workstation, recipe, resource, bookshelf, cookbook, the difference between Ansible and Chef, Chef and Puppet, Chef-apply and Chef-client, Knife commands, Test kitchen, UHAI and more. Every topic that we have covered in this blog is very useful for aspirants to crack the Chef Interview. These set of questions are compatible with both beginners and experienced Chef Professionals to boost up their career excellence in the field of Chef. As most of the organizations are adapting Chef Technologies in their business activities, there is now a huge demand for certified Chef Professionals. So, make use of the blog provided by Coursejet to come up in your career.
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Frequently asked Chef Interview Questions and Answers
The Chef is one of the recent inventions that are truly appreciated by most of the organizations and so the demand for Chef Professionals is increasing day by day. All these top 50 Chef Interview questions and answers are prepared by well-experienced recruiters in the Chef industry. Thus, aspirants who go through these questions will certainly crack their interview and get placed in their most desired multinational company with a maximum pay scale. Every question is detailed in a simple language such that every candidate can understand the concept clearly without expert guidance. Most of the aspirants got placed and performed well in their interviews by making use of these questions and we regularly update several important questions on consultation with the leading recruiters in the industry. So, make use of these Chef Interview questions and excel in your career life. We wish you all success in your future job search.
This is one of the common Chef Interview questions asked by most of the interviewers. The Chef is nothing but an essential instrument which can be used for effective automation and configuration management. With Chef, you can easily convert an infrastructure into a perfectly performing code. The Chef can also be utilized to write codes for various IT solutions and business process. For setting up physical servers, cloud and virtual machines, organizations can also make use of Chef. Most of the companies that make use of Chef to control and manage their infrastructural activities are as follows:
- Etsy
- Cheezburger
- Expedia
The table below will give you the complete difference between Chef and Puppet.
Chef | Puppet |
The Chef is defined to be program friendly | Puppet is defined to be system friendly |
With Chef, it is simpler to configure the servers | With Puppet, the server configuration is not so simpler |
It supports only limited platforms | It supports and is compatible with several platforms |
It provides extended APIs | It does not ensure extended APIs |
The major components that are involved in Chef Architecture are as follows:
- Chef node
- Chef server
- Chef workstation
Chef node can be defined as a client who is responsible for catering the resource or valuable data across several available networks and the process of Chef Node is similar to chef-client architecture. The major functions of Chef Node are as follows:
- These are some of the special types of nodes that are configured with the help of chef-client.
- Chef-client actually performs or it is being executed on the node and it gathers information to chef node from the chef server.
- Nodes at times can be referred to as the clients which are the machines that effectively execute the chef-client software.
Chef Server can also be represented as a one-stop resource where all the details that are required to configure a node will be stored.
Chef Workstation is nothing but a host that is used to modify or edit the configured data or cookbook which will be passed to Chef Server for further processes.
This is one of the trickiest questions which you should prepare to attend the Chef interviews more confidently.
Following are some of the works which are executed in the Chef workstation:
- Cookbooks and recipes can be developed and tested at the workstation.
- Workstation is the place where Chef Code is being tested for reliability.
- It is the location where Chef Repository is kept synchronized with the version source control.
- Workstation is the spot where organization policies are configured, roles and environments are defined, the data of data bags are stored.
- It is the place where nodes interact in order to perform credible Bootstrap functions.
The easiest question in Chef interviews that you should never miss answering. A node is nothing but a virtual machine, physical server or container instance or any other computer resources that are available in your infrastructure and which are effectively maintained by Chef can be detailed as a node.
This is one of the common and the most frequently asked Chef Interview questions. Follow the interview ingredients offered by Coursejet to level up your career progress.
Start with explaining what “Resource” is. Resource actually denotes a specific infrastructure and its relevant states which include the package that has to be installed, a service that has to be executed, or a piece of the special file that has to be created. Also, a block of resource can be termed as a “Recipe”.
Then continue by explaining some of the major functions of “Resource”. The functions of resource in Chef are as follows:
- It actually defines the configured item’s desired state.
- It provides the steps that are required to bring that particular configured item to its desired state.
- It denotes some of the essential resources like templates, packages and services.
- It also provides other valid details as and when required, it can also be stated as resource properties.
- Resources are actually collected in groups known as “Recipe” which perfectly explains the working configuration in detail.
As this question dealt with the term “Recipe” you next question from the recruiter might be based on “Recipe” so continue getting to know about it too.
Among the top 50 Chef interview questions, this is the most important question asked by the recruiters often. So, prepare yourself confidently to answer this question well.
First, explain what “Recipe” is in Chef. A recipe in chef is nothing but a collection of resources that indicates a specific policy or configuration. From the recipe, you can get all the information required to configure any specific part of a system at ease.
The main functions of the recipe in the chef include the following:
- It can be used to configure and install particular software components easily.
- It can easily manage a huge volume of files and deploy applications as and when required.
- It can handle the part of execution in all other recipes too.
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This is a common Chef Interview question nowadays. So, aspirants follow the interview preparation pattern shared by Coursejet to confidently attend Chef Interviews in the future.
A recipe is defined to be a collection of resources which can be effectively used to configure software packages or infrastructure while a cookbook is a collection of recipes which can be managed and utilized effectively than a recipe.
Following are some of the advantages of Chef
- The Chef makes it simpler to automate the deployment process handled in the cloud environment.
- It supports both cloud-based and data center-based infrastructure.
- It is highly flexible and so you can select the appropriate cloud providers for your infrastructure at ease.
- It makes it highly available to control or support servers that are associated with hardware failures.
This is one of the frequently asked questions in the Chef Interviews. Be assured that both Chef Repo and Chef Repository are the same and you will have to answer the same as follows. It is one of the directories of workstation that stores the following:
- Cookbooks (consist of recipes, attributes, custom resources, libraries, and templates)
- Roles
- Data bags
- Environments
It is essential to synchronize Chef-repo with Git, know as one of the version control systems and every data present in the Chef-repo should be considered as the source code.
A bookshelf is effectively used by the Chef-server to store templates, cookbooks and documents which can be used to achieve a versioned repository.
The main functions of Chef-client are as follows:
- It can be used to communicate with the central Chef Server effectively.
- It can be used to manage the node registration of the central Chef Server.
- It can be used to apply cookbooks to the nodes.
It requires frequent polling to fetch new configuration present in the Chef Server.
The global variable that is stored in the JSON format and that can be easily accessed by the Chef Server is known as the Data Bag. Mostly, a data bag is used to search and it can be uploaded to the recipe or it can be easily accessed while undergoing a search process.
The set of steps that are considered by the Chef-client to configure a node can be stated as the “Chef-client run”.
A Chef validator is nothing but an authenticated request raised by the Chef-client to the Chef server using the Chef server API and a private key.
Listen to the question carefully – there are two types of question your interviewer can ask, this is Chef in automation while your interviewer might ask “Chef in DevOps” too. For the answer to what is Chef in DevOps, refer Question no.1. Here, you will find the answer to what is Chef in automation.
One of the powerful automation platforms that effectively transforms or converts infrastructure into code is known as Chef in automation in which the Chef server resembles a hub to configure data at ease which stores cookbooks that are known as policies which might be applied to the nodes and the metadata that represents each of the nodes that are registered and managed effectively by the Chef-client.
SSL certificate is used between both the Chef-client and the Chef server in order to ensure that each and every node has prompt access with the appropriate data.
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Following the steps that you will have to follow in order to update the Chef cookbook at ease:
- Execute the knife SSH present in the workstation.
- Then run both the Knife SSH and the Chef-client on the server.
- Then you can consider making use of the Chef-client which can be recognized as a daemon to boot up the service.
In case the developer of your organization has not described the action in Chef Resource, then it will select any particular action as a default action automatically.
The main function of Signed Header is that it can easily validate the interaction between Chef Server, Chef Node and the authentication of signed header.
SSL_CERT_FILE in Chef can be used to represent the location of the SSL Certificate Authority bundle also known as SSL CA bundle that can be utilized effectively by the Chef-client for further valid processes.
DK is nothing but a server station present in Chef which can be used for effective system interaction with the help of the pre-installed tools that are available in DK.
This is one of the most important Chef Interview questions that every aspirant should know before attending a Chef interview.
An embedded template which can be used to create static files which hold both Ruby statements and expressions are known as the “Chef Template”.
Ruby is one of the reference languages which can be used to represent the design that is present in the cookbooks, resources and recipes which can be utilized to install, organize and handle nodes across the web. Also, it can be stated as a programming language which can be used to decide what should be done in order to develop efficient resources and recipes.
If you are asked this question in the Chef interview, first explain what run-list is and then enter into the functions of run-list.
Run-list actually specifies in which order a recipe has to be executed. When you have several cookbooks then run-list is highly required to analyze the order in which the cookbooks are executed.
The main functions of the run-list are as follows:
- Run-list actually runs a particular set of roles and recipes in a defined order, in case if a recipe is listed twice in the run-list, then Chef-client will not run a recipe for two times.
- Every node will have a specific run-list in which order a node will be executed.
- It will be stored as a node object within a Chef server.
- It will be maintained with the help of a knife and then uploaded to the Chef server’s workstation or it can be maintained with the help of Chef Management console.
Following are the list of benefits of run-list:
- It ensures whether all the recipes are executed on the same order as indicated by the run-list.
- It will also define on which node a recipe will be executed.
- It can also be used to cater a workstation to a Chef server.
Knife bootstrap in Chef is used to create a fresh node that is used to connect to the Chef server. OHAI is deployed by Chef during the time of bootstrapping a particular node. And, this command can be used in installing the Chef infra-client on a specific node.
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This is one of the important Chef interview questions asked in most of the interviews. The prerequisites to run a Bootstrap in Chef are as follows:
- The public IP address or the hostname of the node that you are using.
- The login credentials to enter into the specific node.
- Also, you will require key-based authentication which will be an alternative for the node’s username and password.
The subcommands of Chef are as follows – Knife SSL check command and Knife SSL fetch.
The Knife SSL check command in Chef is used to examine the state of SSL certificate and the result thus achieved can be utilized to troubleshoot the problems that are prompted.
In order to download the self-signed certificate from the Chef Server and to store it into the directory that is present in the workstation, we can make use of the Knife SSL fetch command.
With the help of “Knife cookbook upload”, you can easily upload the cookbook to a Chef Server at ease.
To analyze or to determine the interaction between the Chef Server and the node is known as the “Signature Header”.
Following are some of the main functions of the starter kit used in Chef:
The starter kit is used to create several valid configuration files which include chef directory, the ORGANIZATION-validator.pem, knife.rb and USER.pem files which hold the essential information which can be used for Chef Server interaction.
The cookbook version should be set as 1.0.0 which is according to the semantic versioning as and when the cookbook is ready for production.
Both Ansible and Chef is an identical configuration management tool while they have different structures, drawbacks, benefits and strengths. The configuration files in Ansible are known as playbook while in Chef it is known as cookbooks. Ansible is referred to be agentless while Chef will be executed on the client-server.
Aspirants might experience one question from this topic during the Chef interview. Following are the functions of the test kitchen:
Test kitchen ensures the potential of virtualization providers to create a container or virtual machine locally. Workstation and cloud can be used in the creation of instances with the help of a test kitchen. Also, the speed of the development cycle is improved gradually with the help of the test kitchen which is done using automatic provisioning and by excluding temporary instances. The test kitchen is also used to address the dependencies of the cookbook and the application of cookbooks to specific instances.
Chef interviewers might put forth the definition of handlers and its types to the candidates. So, candidates should never miss answering this question. Make use of the blog from Coursejet and prepare for Chef Interviews confidently.
To identify situations that are being developed during the process of Chef-client run, these essential tools called handlers can be used. Also, the methods to handle these situations will also be suggested by the handlers. There are three types of handlers and they are exception handler, start handler and report handler.
This is one of the most frequently asked Chef Interview questions. The table described below shows the general difference between Chef-apply and Chef-client.
Chef-apply | Chef-client |
It involves the application of a single recipe | It involves the application of a cookbook |
It understands the concepts of Chef-apply instantly and therefore it is used for the learning purposes | Chef-client is used for production purpose while there are one or more cookbooks required |
The tool that is used in gathering the system configuration data that enters into the Chef-client is known as the OHAI in Chef. In order to examine the system state, Chef-client executes OHAI at the beginning of every Chef run. There are several plug-ins associated with OHAI to recognize the common configuration information. Apart from this, OHAI will also provide plug-in models to develop custom plug-ins at ease.
From the Chef supermarket (supermarket.chef.io), you can get reusable cookbooks of the same quality that are maintained effectively by the Chef community.
Source of truth in Chef is the process of structuring data or information modules such as every data can be modified at a particular spot.
The Chef is not actually an orchestration tool while an orchestration tool can be used to easily represent a complex model or a system.
The essential information of a node can be represented as an attribute and it can be used by the Chef intra-client to understand the current state of the node.
Attributes in Chef can be used to illustrate the node’s information.
Chef DK is actually considered to be a collection of development tools that help in examining, coding and generating Chef Cookbooks. While a Chef DK also holds Chef-client which can be used for node configuration, OHAI which can be used for data profiling, Knife which can be used for Chef Cookbook creation and test kitchen which can be used for examination of the harness of more frequent validations.
A Berkfile in Chef can be used for defining a group of origins or addictions that can be used to effectively utilize a cookbook and it can also be used in combination of the berk commands.
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