NAME

       knife-download - The man page for the knife download subcommand.

       The  knife  download  subcommand is used to download roles, cookbooks, environments, nodes, and data bags
       from the server to the current working directory.. It can be used to back up data on the server,  inspect
       the  state of one or more files, or to extract out-of-process changes users may have made to files on the
       server, such as if a user made a change that bypassed version source control. This  subcommand  is  often
       used  in  conjunction  with knife diff, which can be used to see exactly what changes will be downloaded,
       and then knife upload, which does the opposite of knife download.

       Common Options

       The following options can be run with all Knife sub-commands and plug-ins:

       -c CONFIG, --config CONFIG
              The configuration file to use.

       --color
              Indicates that colored output will be used.

       -d, --disable-editing
              Indicates that $EDITOR will not be opened; data will be accepted as-is.

       --defaults
              Indicates that Knife will use the default value, instead of asking a user to provide one.

       -e EDITOR, --editor EDITOR
              The $EDITOR that is used for all interactive commands.

       -E ENVIRONMENT, --environment ENVIRONMENT
              The name of the environment. When this option is added to a command, the  command  will  run  only
              against the named environment.

       -f FILE_NAME, --file FILE_NAME
              Indicates that the private key will be saved to a specified file name.

       -F FORMAT, --format FORMAT
              The output format: summary (default), text, json, yaml, and pp.

       -h, --help
              Shows help for the command.

       -k KEY, --key KEY
              The private key that Knife will use to sign requests made by the API client to the server.

       --no-color
              Indicates that color will not be used in the output.

       -p PASSWORD, --password PASSWORD
              The user password.

       --print-after
              Indicates that data will be shown after a destructive operation.

       -s URL, --server-url URL
              The URL for the server.

       -u USER, --user USER
              The  user name used by Knife to sign requests made by the API client to the server. Authentication
              will fail if the user name does not match the private key.

       -v, --version
              The version of the chef-client.

       -V, --verbose
              Set for more verbose outputs. Use -VV for maximum verbosity.

       -y, --yes
              Indicates that the response to all confirmation prompts will be "Yes" (and that Knife will not ask
              for confirmation).

       Syntax

       This argument has the following syntax:

       $ knife download [PATTERN...] (options)

       Options

       This subcommand has the following options:

       --chef-repo-path PATH
              The path to the chef-repo. This setting will override the default path to the chef-repo.  Default:
              same as specified by chef_repo_path in config.rb.

       --concurrency
              The number of allowed concurrent connections. Default: 10.

       --force
              Use  --force  to download files even when the file on the hard drive is identical to the object on
              the server (role, cookbook, etc.).  By default, files are compared to see if they have  equivalent
              content, and local files are only overwritten if they are different. Default: --no-force.

       -n, --dry-run
              Indicates that no action is taken and that results are only printed out. Default: false.

       --[no-]diff
              Indicates that only new and modified files will be downloaded. Set to false to download all files.
              Default: --diff.

       --[no-]recurse
              Use --no-recurse to disable downloading a directory recursively. Default: --recurse.

       --purge
              Use --purge to delete local files and directories that do not exist on the server.  By default, if
              a  role,  cookbook,  etc.  does not exist on the server, the local file for said role will be left
              alone and NOT deleted. Default: --no-purge.

       --repo-mode MODE
              The layout of the local chef-repo. Possible values: static, everything, or hosted_everything.  Use
              static  for  just  roles,  environments,  cookbooks,  and  data  bags.  By default, everything and
              hosted_everything are dynamically selected depending on the server  type.  Default:  everything  /
              hosted_everything.

       Examples

       To download the entire chef-repo from the server, browse to the top level of the chef-repo and enter:

       $ knife download /

       To download the cookbooks/ directory from the server, browse to the top level of the chef-repo and enter:

       $ knife download cookbooks

       or from anywhere in the chef-repo, enter:

       $ knife download /cookbooks

       To  download  the  environments/  directory from the server, browse to the top level of the chef-repo and
       enter:

       $ knife download environments

       or from anywhere in the chef-repo, enter:

       $ knife download /environments

       To download an environment named "production" from the server, browse to the top level of  the  chef-repo
       and enter:

       $ knife download environments/production.json

       or from the environments/ directory, enter:

       $ knife download production.json

       To download the roles/ directory from the server, browse to the top level of the chef-repo and enter:

       $ knife download roles

       or from anywhere in the chef-repo, enter:

       $ knife download /roles

       To  download all cookbooks that start with "apache" and belong to the "webserver" role, browse to the top
       level of the chef-repo and enter:

       $  knife download cookbooks/apache\* roles/webserver.json

AUTHOR

       Opscode

                                                   Chef 11.8.0                                 KNIFE-DOWNLOAD(1)