Node Management

In the Node Management user interface (UI), you can:

• Enroll and manage nodes.
• Make nodes visible in a node fleet.
• Manage skills (agents) installed on nodes.
• Group nodes using filters or lists.

Settings

Register the Node Management agent

In the Node Management Agent Registration page, fill in the form to register the node management agent (which helps to manage node skills).

• Builder URL
• Builder Channel
• Builder Auth Token
• Node CheckIn Interval (Seconds)
• Skill Meta Data Interval (Seconds)
• Log Level

When finished filling in the form, select Register.

Skill definitions

A skill is an agent that allows you to perform actions on a node for a specific outcome. A skill can either be a canister-based skill or a non-canister-based skill. The Skill Definitions page shows the list of existing skill definitions. The table contains the columns Name, Canister Name, Canister Origin, and Actions.

Create a skill definition

Create skills to perform actions on a node. To create a skill definition, follow these steps:

1. Select Create Skill Definition.

2. Enter the Skill name, Canister name, and Canister origin for the new skill. Only lowercase letters (a-z), digits (0-9), underscore (_), and hyphen (-) are allowed in the Origin field.

3. Enable or disable the Service Skill toggle.

4. Select the skill dependencies from the list.

5. Add a Configuration Template. You can add multiple templates for a skill.

6. Select Define Skill.

Update or delete a skill definition

• To update a skill definition, select Update Default Settings in the Actions menu.

• To delete a skill definition, select Delete from the Actions menu.

Skill assemblies

A skill assembly defines a set of skills to be installed or removed from a set of nodes.

To create a skill assembly, follow these steps:

1. Select Create Skill Assembly.

2. Enter a skill name in the Name text box.

3. Select Choose Skill in the Skills to Add or Skills to Remove section and fill in the fields.

4. Select Save Skill Assembly.

Override settings

The Overside Settings page shows the list of existing nodes and skills. The table contains the Name, Skills, and Actions columns.

Create an override setting

To create an override setting, follow these steps:

1. Select Create Override Setting.

2. Enter the Name in the override settings name text box.

3. Select Choose Skills. Select a skill name from the drop-down menu.

4. Select Add Attribute.

5. Enter the attribute’s name and value in the text boxes.

6. Select Save Override Setting.

Delete an override setting

To delete an override setting, follow these steps:

1. Select the delete option from the Actions menu.

2. Select Delete Override Setting.

Node cohorts

A node cohort defines skills and settings installed on every node in the cohort. The Node Cohorts page shows a list of existing node cohorts. The table contains the Name, Description, and Actions columns.

Create a node cohort

To create a node cohort, follow these steps:

1. Select Create Node Cohort.

2. Enter the Node Cohort name and description.

3. Select the override settings ID and skill assembly ID from the drop-down lists.

4. Select Save Node Cohort.

Delete a node cohort

To delete a node cohort, follow these steps:

1. Select the delete option from the Actions menu.

2. Select Delete Node Cohort.

Enroll nodes

Node enrollment brings nodes under Chef 360 Platform’s management. You can enroll nodes using the Single Node Enrollment or Bulk Node Enrollment method. For further details on single and bulk node enrollment, refer to the following sub-sections.

You can also enroll nodes with a Chef Infra Cookbook. For further details on this, refer to the following section: Enroll nodes with a Chef Infra cookbook

Single-node enrollment

With single-node enrollment, you define each node’s credentials and enrollment settings, and then Chef 360 Platform uses those settings to connect to and enroll the node. Single-node enrollment is performed from the server side and supports complete enrollment.

For single node enrollment, follow these steps:

1. Enter the Node ID, IP Address/FQDN, and the Node Cohort.

2. Select WinRM or SSH.

3. Enter the Username and Password in the text boxes.

   If you select SSH, select the Credential Type, enter the Username, Password, and Port in the text boxes.

4. Select Enroll Nodes.

Bulk node enrollment

With bulk enrollment, you define the nodes, credentials, and enrollment settings in a CSV file that you upload to Chef 360 Platform. Once uploaded, Chef 360 Platform connects to and enrolls each node defined in the file.

For bulk node enrollment, follow these steps:

1. Either select Select File and browse to and select the relevant file, or drop it into the user interface (UI).

2. Select Enroll Node.

Cookbook-based node enrollment

With cookbook-based node enrollment, you upload cookbooks with enrollment settings to Chef Infra Server and Chef Infra Client enrolls the node with Chef 360 Platform.

For more information, see the cookbook-based node enrollment documentation.

All nodes view

The Node View screen shows all the nodes. You can select the Refresh button to update the view.

The Nodes table contains the following columns:

• Node ID

• FQDN

• Operating System

• Skill Installed

• Hostname

• Enrollment Level

  • To the right of the Enrollment Level admitted state, there is an icon indicating the status. A red circle with an x () indicates that the enrolment failed. A warning icon (amber triangle with an exclamation mark in the middle ()) indicates that the enrollment workflow is in progress. You can select the icon to view the detailed enrolment status workflow.

• Node Cohort Name

• Actions

Use the drop-down menu to add filters to view the required nodes.

Apply tags

You can associate tags to nodes so that you can easily distinguish nodes that belong to common categories or groups. For example, if you have a set of nodes in development, staging, and production environments and you want to roll out a change to all nodes - you can first roll out the change to all nodes tagged as Dev and Staging before rolling it out to nodes tagged as Production.

You can tag nodes using the actions menu in the Actions column. You can only tag one node at a time. To tag a node, follow these steps:

1. Select the three dots in the Actions column.
2. Select Tag Nodes.
3. Enter the Key and Value in the fields.
4. Select Add More to add more tags to the node.
5. Select Apply Tags. Select the node to view the applied tag (or tags).

To update or remove a tag, follow these steps:

1. Select the three dots in the Actions column.
2. Select Tag Nodes. The existing tags are displayed.
3. Select Remove All to remove all the tags.
4. Select Add More to add more tags to the node.
5. Select Apply Tags to apply the changes.

Node collection

A node is a resource–either physical or virtual–that’s accessible over a network. The Node Collection page shows the existing Node Filters and the Node Lists.

Create a node filter

A node filter is a search expression used to identify a set of nodes using SQL-like expressions on any namespace and attribute. You can create filters that include or exclude nodes based on specific pattern sets. To create node filters, follow these steps:

1. Select Create Node Filter.

2. In the first drop-down list, select the type of filter to add. Depending on what option is selected, the remaining fields differ:

   • Node Attribute: Enter the Namespace, and Name, select an Operator from the drop-down, and enter the Value.
   • Skill: Enter the Skill Name, and Skill Type, select an Operator from the drop-down, and enter the Version.
   • Enrollment Level: Select an Operator and Enrollment Level from the drop-down.
   • Node Health Status: Select an Operator and a Node Health Status from the drop-down.

3. Select +Add More to add more filters.

4. Select Apply Filter.

Update a node filter

To update a node filter, follow these steps:

1. Click the three dots in the Actions column for the relevant node and click Update.
2. Modify the fields as needed. More filters can be added or all filters can be removed.
3. Select Apply Filter.
4. Select Update Node Filter.
5. You can Save or Save as to save a new node filter.

Node list

A node list is a list of nodes you can create and save separately. To create a node list, follow these steps:

1. Select the nodes using the tick boxes of the nodes.

2. Select Save Node List at the top-right corner of the All Nodes table.

3. Enter a name for the node list in the Node List name text box.

4. Select Confirm.