NAME

       knife - The man page for the knife command line tool.

       Knife  is  a command-line tool that provides an interface between a local chef-repo and the server. Knife
       helps users to manage:

       • Nodes

       • Cookbooks and recipes

       • Roles

       • Stores of JSON data (data bags), including encrypted data

       • Environments

       • Cloud resources, including provisioning

       • The installation of the chef-client on management workstations

       • Searching of indexed data on the server

       Knife subcommands:

       • knife bootstrap

       • knife client

       • knife configure

       • knife cookbook

       • knife cookbook site

       • knife data bag

       • knife delete

       • knife deps

       • knife diff

       • knife download

       • knife edit

       • knife environment

       • knife exec

       • knife list

       • knife node

       • knife raw

       • knife recipe list

       • knife role

       • knife search

       • knife show

       • knife ssh

       • knife status

       • knife tag

       • knife upload

       • knife user

       • knife xargs

WORKING WITH KNIFE

       Knife  runs  from  a  management  workstation  and  sits  in-between  a  server  and  an   organization's
       infrastructure.  Knife  interacts with a server by using the same REST API that is used by a chef-client.
       Role-based authentication controls (RBAC) can be used to authorize changes when Knife is run with  Hosted
       Chef  or  Private Chef. Knife is configured during workstation setup, but subsequent modifications can be
       made using the knife.rb configuration file.

   JSON Data Format
       Most data is entered using a text editor in JSON format, unless the --disable-editing option  is  entered
       as  part  of  a  command.  (Encrypted data bags use YAML, which is a superset of JSON.) JSON is a common,
       language-independent data format that provides a simple text representation of arbitrary data structures.
       For more information about JSON, see http://www.json.org/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON.

   Set the Text Editor
       Some Knife commands, such as knife data bag edit, require that information be edited as JSON data using a
       text editor. For example, the following command:

       $ knife data bag edit admins admin_name

       will open up the text editor with data similar to:

       {
         "id": "admin_name"
       }

       Changes to that file can then be made:

       {
         "id": "Justin C."
         "description": "I am passing the time by letting time pass over me ..."
       }

       The type of text editor that is used by Knife can be configured by adding an entry to the  knife.rb  file
       or  by  setting  an EDITOR environment variable. For example, to configure the text editor to always open
       with vim, add the following to the knife.rb file:

       knife[:editor] = "/usr/bin/vim"

       When a Microsoft Windows file path is enclosed in a  double-quoted  string  ("  "),  the  same  backslash
       character  (\)  that  is  used to define the file path separator is also used in Ruby to define an escape
       character. The knife.rb file is a Ruby  file;  therefore,  file  path  separators  must  be  escaped.  In
       addition,  spaces in the file path must be replaced with ~1 so that the length of each section within the
       file path is not more than 8 characters. For example, if EditPad Pro is the text editor of choice and  is
       located at the following path:

       C:\\Program Files (x86)\EditPad Pro\EditPad.exe

       the setting in the knife.rb file would be similar to:

       knife[:editor] = "C:\\Progra~1\\EditPa~1\\EditPad.exe"

       One  approach to working around the double- vs. single-quote issue is to put the single-quotes outside of
       the double-quotes. For example, for Notepad++:

       knife[:editor] = '"C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\notepad++.exe -nosession -multiInst"'

       for Sublime Text:

       knife[:editor] = '"C:\Program Files\Sublime Text 2\sublime_text.exe --wait"'

       for TextPad:

       knife[:editor] = '"C:\Program Files (x86)\TextPad 7\TextPad.exe"'

       and for vim:

       knife[:editor] = '"C:\Program Files (x86)\vim\vim74\gvim.exe"'

   Using Quotes
       Values can be entered with double quotes ("  ")  or  single  quotes  ('  '),  but  this  should  be  done
       consistently.

   Sub-commands
       Knife  comes  with  a  collection  of  built  in  subcommands  that  work  together to provide all of the
       functionality required to take  specific  actions  against  any  object  in  an  organization,  including
       cookbooks,  nodes,  roles,  data  bags, environments, and users. A Knife plugin extends the functionality
       beyond built-in subcommands.

       Knife has the following subcommands: bootstrap, client, configure, cookbook,  cookbook  site,  data  bag,
       delete,  deps,  diff,  download,  edit,  environment, exec, index rebuild, list, node, recipe list, role,
       search, show, ssh, status, tag, upload, user, and xargs.

       Note   The following subcommands run only against the open source server: index rebuild and user.

   Syntax
       All Knife subcommands have the following syntax:
          knife subcommand [ARGUMENT] (options)

       Each subcommand has its own set of arguments and options.

       Note   All syntax examples in this document show variables in ALL_CAPS. For example -u  PORT_LIST  (where
              PORT_LIST  is  a  comma-separated  list  of local and public UDP ports) or -F FORMAT (where FORMAT
              determines the output format, either summary, text, json, yaml,  or  pp).  These  variables  often
              require specific values that are unique to each organization.

AUTHOR

       Opscode

                                                   Chef 11.8.0                                          KNIFE(1)