Community API

Chef community members can use Chef’s Community API to download Chef software packages and view software package metadata.

License

You must have a Free Tier License ID to download packages from the Chef Community API. To generate a new license ID or retrieve an existing license ID, submit a request.

See Chef’s licensing documentation for more information on the Chef license.

Endpoints

The Chef Community Download API has the following endpoints:

• /architectures
• /platforms
• /products
• /packages
• /versions/all
• /versions/latest
• /metadata
• /download
• /fileName
• /files

See the parameters section below to understand the query strings and path parameters used in the following endpoint descriptions.

architectures

The architectures endpoint returns a valid list of architecture that Chef products are built for. Any of these architectures can be used in the m query string value in various endpoints below.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/architectures

platforms

The platforms endpoint returns a list of valid platform keys along with full product names. Any of these platform keys can be used in the p query string value in various endpoints below.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/platforms

products

The products endpoint returns a list of valid product keys. In the following endpoints, you can replace the <PRODUCT> string with a product key in the response of this endpoint.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/products

Use eol=true to return EOL products.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/products?eol=true

packages

Use packages to get a list of all packages for a particular product.

By default, it returns packages for the latest version.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/packages?license_id=<LICENSE_ID>

You can specify a version number with the v query string to get packages for a particular product version.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/packages?v=<VERSION_NUMBER>&license_id=<LICENSE_ID>

To retrieve download URLs from the /files endpoint, add the direct=true parameter:

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/packages?license_id=<LICENSE_ID>&direct=true

versions/all

Use versions/all to return a list of versions of a product.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/versions/all?license_id=<LICENSE_ID>

versions/latest

Use versions/latest to return the latest version of a product.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/versions/latest?license_id=<LICENSE_ID>

metadata

The metadata endpoint returns data about a particular package of a Chef product.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/metadata?p=<PLATFORM>&pv=<PLATFORM_VERSION>&m=<ARCHITECTURE>&v=<PRODUCT_VERSION>&license_id=<LICENSE_ID>

To retrieve metadata with a download URL from the /files endpoint, add the direct=true parameter:

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/metadata?p=<PLATFORM>&pv=<PLATFORM_VERSION>&m=<ARCHITECTURE>&v=<PRODUCT_VERSION>&license_id=<LICENSE_ID>&direct=true

download

The download endpoint downloads a particular package of a Chef product.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/download?p=<PLATFORM>&pv=<PLATFORM_VERSION>&m=<ARCHITECTURE>&v=<PRODUCT_VERSION>&license_id=<LICENSE_ID>

fileName

The fileName endpoint returns the file name.

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/<CHANNEL>/<PRODUCT>/fileName?p=<PLATFORM>&pv=<PLATFORM_VERSION>&m=<ARCHITECTURE>&v=<PRODUCT_VERSION>&license_id=<LICENSE_ID>

files

The files endpoint downloads a particular package of a Chef product.

The endpoint identifies the package using path segments instead of query parameters. The URL structure varies depending on the product type.

To construct a /files endpoint URL, use the metadata or packages endpoint with the direct=true parameter to retrieve the correct URL for your use case. To get the filename for a package, use the fileName endpoint.

Download packages for Chef Automate and Chef Habitat:

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/files/stable/<PRODUCT>/<PRODUCT_VERSION>/<PLATFORM>/<ARCHITECTURE>/<FILENAME>?license_id=<LICENSE_ID>

Download packages for other products:

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/files/stable/<PRODUCT>/<PRODUCT_VERSION>/<PLATFORM>/<PLATFORM_VERSION>/<ARCHITECTURE>/<FILENAME>?license_id=<LICENSE_ID>

Parameters

The API accepts the following parameters. Most endpoints use these as query string values, while the files endpoint uses the same values as path segments in the URL. Each parameter’s placeholder name (shown in angle brackets) represents both forms.

<CHANNEL>

The release channel to install from. The Community API only supports the stable channel.

<PRODUCT>

The Chef Software product to install.

You can see a list of valid product keys in the Chef product matrix or by using the products endpoint.

license_id

Your license ID.

A license is required to download packages and retrieve package metadata with this API. Only free licenses can be used for community downloads.

eol

Whether to include EOL versions of a product or EOL products in the response.

Possible values: true or false.

Default value: false.

p (<PLATFORM>)

The platform.

Possible values: debian, el (for RHEL derivatives), freebsd, mac_os_x, solaris2, sles, suse, ubuntu or windows.

For a complete list, use the platforms endpoint.

pv (<PLATFORM_VERSION>)

The platform version.

Possible values depend on the platform. For example, Ubuntu: 18.04, or 20.04, or for macOS: 10.15 or 11.

m (<ARCHITECTURE>)

The machine architecture for the machine on which the product will be installed.

Possible values depend on the platform. For example, for Ubuntu or Debian: i386 or x86_64, or for macOS: x86_64.

To get the supported architecture values, use the architectures endpoint.

v (<PRODUCT_VERSION>)

The version of the product to be installed.

Versions typically take the form of x.y.z where x, y, and z are decimal numbers that represent major (x), minor (y), and patch (z) versions. One-part (x) and two-part (x.y) versions are allowed.

Default value: latest.

<FILENAME>

The name of the package file to download.

Use the fileName endpoint to retrieve this value for a given package.

direct

Returns the download URL from the /files endpoint instead of the standard download endpoint.

Possible values: true or false.

Default value: false.

Chef product names

See the Supported Versions documentation for information about the support status of individual products.

This is a list of currently supported products that you can install with this API.

Examples

Get the latest build

To get the latest supported build of Chef Infra Client for Ubuntu 20.04, enter the following:

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/chef/metadata?p=ubuntu&pv=20.04&m=x86_64&license_id=<LICENSE_ID>

which returns something like:

sha1	"3c8a265a36c2ce7e5594ae894fafb248789464a2"
sha256	"512c1eff0a4103e4a5c73b196d14393eddbf2b766a75e94ac9a9cb97d1fdd19c"
url	"https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/chef/download?eol=false&m=x86_64&p=ubuntu&pv=20.04&v=14.15.6"
version	"14.15.6"

To get the latest supported build of Chef Infra Client for Ubuntu 20.04 with a direct download URL from the /files endpoint, add the direct=true parameter:

https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/chef/metadata?p=ubuntu&pv=20.04&m=x86_64&license_id=<LICENSE_ID>&direct=true

which returns something like:

sha1	"3c8a265a36c2ce7e5594ae894fafb248789464a2"
sha256	"512c1eff0a4103e4a5c73b196d14393eddbf2b766a75e94ac9a9cb97d1fdd19c"
url	"https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/files/stable/chef/14.15.6/ubuntu/20.04/x86_64/chef_14.15.6-1_amd64.deb?license_id=<LICENSE_ID>"
version	"14.15.6"

Download directly

To use curl to download a package directly, enter the following:

curl -LOJ 'https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/download?p=<PLATFORM>&pv=<PLATFORM_VERSION>&m=<ARCHITECTURE>&license_id=<LICENSE_ID>'

To use GNU Wget to download a package directly, enter the following:

wget --content-disposition https://chefdownload-community.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/download?p=<PLATFORM>&pv=<PLATFORM_VERSION>&m=<ARCHITECTURE>&license_id=<LICENSE_ID>