1. knife-cookbook(1)
2. Chef Manual
3. knife-cookbook(1)

## NAME

`knife-cookbook` - upload and manage chef cookbooks

## SYNOPSIS

knife cookbook sub-command (options)

## SUB-COMMANDS

`knife cookbook` supports the following sub commands:

## LIST

knife cookbook list (options)

`-a`, `--all`
  show all versions of a cookbook instead of just the most recent
`-w`, `--with-uri`
  show corresponding uris

Lists the cookbooks available on the Chef server.

## SHOW

knife cookbook show cookbook [version] [part] [filename] (options)

`-f`, `--fqdn fqdn`
  the fqdn of the host to see the file for
`-p`, `--platform platform`
  the platform to see the file for
`-v`, `--platform-version version`
  the platform version to see the file for
`-w`, `--with-uri`
  Show corresponding URIs

show a particular part of a cookbook for the specified version. part can be one of:

- attributes
- definitions
- files
- libraries
- providers
- recipes
- resources
- templates

## UPLOAD

knife cookbook upload [cookbooks...] (options)

`-a`, `--all`
  upload all cookbooks, rather than just a single cookbook
`-o`, `--cookbook-path path:path`
  a colon-separated path to look for cookbooks in
`-d`, `--upload-dependencies`
  Uploads additional cookbooks that this cookbook lists in as dependencies in its metadata.
`-E`, `--environment ENVIRONMENT`
  An ENVIRONMENT to apply the uploaded cookbooks to. Specifying this option will cause knife to edit the ENVIRONMENT to place a strict version constraint on the cookbook version(s) uploaded.
`--freeze`
  Sets the frozen flag on the uploaded cookbook(s) Any future attempt to modify the cookbook without changing the version number will return an error unless --force is specified.
`--force`
  Overrides the frozen flag on a cookbook, allowing you to overwrite a cookbook version that has previously been uploaded with the --freeze option.

Uploads one or more cookbooks from your local cookbook repository(ies) to the Chef Server. Only files that don't yet exist on the server will be uploaded.

As the command parses the name args as 1..n cookbook names:

    `knife cookbook upload COOKBOOK COOKBOOK ...`

works for one to many cookbooks.

## DOWNLOAD

knife cookbook download cookbook [version] (options)

`-d`, `--dir download_directory`
  the directory to download the cookbook into
`-f`, `--force`
  overwrite an existing directory with the download
`-n`, `--latest`
  download the latest version of the cookbook

download a cookbook from the chef server. if no version is specified and only one version exists on the server, that version will be downloaded. if no version is specified and multiple versions are available on the server, you will be prompted for a version to download.

## DELETE

knife cookbook delete cookbook [version] (options)

`-a`, `--all`
  delete all versions
`-p`, `--purge`
  purge files from backing store. this will disable any cookbook that contains any of the same files as the cookbook being purged.

delete the specified version of the named cookbook. if no version is specified, and only one version exists on the server, that version will be deleted. if multiple versions are available on the server, you will be prompted for a version to delete.

## BULK DELETE

knife cookbook bulk delete regex (options)

`-p`, `--purge`
  purge files from backing store. this will disable any cookbook that contains any of the same files as the cookbook being purged.

delete cookbooks on the chef server based on a regular expression. the regular expression (regex) should be in quotes, not in //'s.

## COOKBOOK CREATE

knife cookbook create cookbook (options)

`-o`, `--cookbook-path path`
  the directory where the cookbook will be created
`-r`, `--readme-format format`
  format of the readme file md, mkd, txt, rdoc
`-c`, `--copyright copyright`
  name of copyright holder
`-i`, `--license license`
  license for cookbook, apachev2 or none
`-e`, `--email email`
  email address of cookbook maintainer

this is a helper command that creates a new cookbook directory in the `cookbook_path`. the following directories and files are created for the named cookbook.

- cookbook/attributes
- cookbook/definitions
- cookbook/files/default
- cookbook/libraries
- cookbook/metadata.rb
- cookbook/providers
- cookbook/readme.md
- cookbook/recipes/default.rb
- cookbook/resources
- cookbook/templates/default

supported readme formats are 'md' (default), 'mkd', 'txt', 'rdoc'. the readme file will be written with the specified extension and a set of helpful starting headers.

specify `-c` or `--copyright` with the name of the copyright holder as your name or your company/organization name in a quoted string. if this value is not specified an all-caps string `your_company_name` is used which can be easily changed with find/replace.

specify `-i` or `--license` with the license that the cookbook is distributed under for sharing with other people or posting to the opscode cookbooks site. be aware of the licenses of files you put inside the cookbook and follow any restrictions they describe. when using `none` (default) or `apachev2`, comment header text and metadata file are pre-filled. the `none` license will be treated as non-redistributable.

specify `-e` or `--email` with the email address of the cookbook's maintainer. if this value is not specified, an all-caps string `your_email` is used which can easily be changed with find/replace.

the cookbook copyright, license, email and readme_format settings can be filled in the `knife.rb`, for example with default values:

    cookbook_copyright "your_company_name"
    cookbook_license "none"
    cookbook_email "your_email"
    readme_format "md"

## METADATA

knife cookbook metadata cookbook (options)

`-a`, `--all`
  generate metadata for all cookbooks, rather than just a single cookbook
`-o`, `--cookbook-path path:path`
  a colon-separated path to look for cookbooks in

generate cookbook metadata for the named cookbook. the path used here specifies where the cookbooks directory is located and corresponds to the `cookbook_path` configuration option.

## METADATA FROM FILE

knife cookbook metadata from file (options)

load the cookbook metadata from a specified file.

## TEST

knife cookbook test [cookbooks...] (options)

`-a`, `--all`
  test all cookbooks, rather than just a single cookbook
`-o`, `--cookbook-path path:path`
  a colon-separated path to look for cookbooks in

test the specified cookbooks for syntax errors. this uses the built-in ruby syntax checking option for files in the cookbook ending in `.rb`, and the erb syntax check for files ending in `.erb` (templates).

## RECIPE LIST

knife recipe list [PATTERN]

List available recipes from the server. Specify PATTERN as a regular expression to limit the results.

## DESCRIPTION

Cookbooks are the fundamental unit of distribution in Chef. They encapsulate all recipes of resources and assets used to configure a particular aspect of the infrastructure. The following sub-commands can be used to manipulate the cookbooks stored on the Chef Server.

On disk, cookbooks are directories with a defined structure. The following directories may appear within a cookbook:

COOKBOOK/attributes/
  Ruby files that define default parameters to be used in recipes
COOKBOOK/definitions/
  Ruby files that contain resource definitions
COOKBOOK/files/SPECIFICITY
  Files of arbitrary type. These files may be downloaded by chef-client(8) when configuring a host.
COOKBOOK/libraries/
  Ruby files that contain library code needed for recipes
COOKBOOK/providers/
  Ruby files that contain Lightweight Provider definitions
COOKBOOK/recipes/
  Ruby files that use Chef's recipe DSL to describe the desired configuration of a system
COOKBOOK/resources/
  Ruby files that contain Lightweight Resource definitions
COOKBOOK/templates/SPECIFICITY
  ERuby (ERb) template files. These are referenced by recipes and evaluated to dynamically generate configuration files.

SPECIFICITY is a feature of files and templates that allow you to specify alternate files to be used on a specific OS platform or host. The default specificity setting is default, that is files in `COOKBOOK/files/default` will be used when a more specific copy is not available. Further documentation for this feature is available on the Chef wiki: http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/File+Distribution#FileDistribution-FileSpecificity

Cookbooks also contain a metadata file that defines various properties of the cookbook. The most important of these are the version and the dependencies. The version is used in combination with environments to select which copy of a given cookbook is distributed to a node. The dependencies are used by the server to determine which additional cookbooks must be distributed to a given host when it requires a cookbook.

## SEE ALSO

knife-environment(1) knife-cookbook-site(1) http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Cookbooks http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Metadata

## AUTHOR

Chef was written by Adam Jacob adam@opscode.com with many contributions from the community.

## DOCUMENTATION

This manual page was written by Joshua Timberman joshua@opscode.com. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and / or modify this document under the terms of the Apache 2.0 License.

## CHEF

Knife is distributed with Chef. http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home

1. Chef 10.24.0
2. February 2013
3. knife-cookbook(1)