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 Chef server to the
current working directory. It can be used to back up data on the Chef
server, inspect the state of one or more files, or to extract out-of-process
changes users may have made to files on the Chef 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.
Syntax
This subcommand has the following syntax:
$ knife download [PATTERN...] (options)
Options
This subcommand has the following options:
- -c CONFIG_FILE,
--config CONFIG_FILE
- The configuration file to use.
- --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.
- --chef-zero-port
PORT
- The port on which chef-zero will listen.
- --[no-]color
- Use to view colored output.
- --concurrency
- The number of allowed concurrent connections. Default: 10.
- --cookbook-version
VERSION
- The version of a cookbook to be downloaded.
- -d,
--disable-editing
- Use to prevent the $EDITOR from being opened and to accept data
as-is.
- --defaults
- Use to have knife use the default value instead of asking a user to
provide one.
- --[no-]diff
- Use to download only new and modified files. Set to false to
download all files. Default: --diff.
- -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 FORMAT, --format
FORMAT
- The output format: summary (default), text, json,
yaml, and pp.
- --[no-]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.
- -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 Chef server.
- -n,
--dry-run
- Use to take no action and only print out results. Default:
false.
- --print-after
- Use to show data after a destructive operation.
- --[no-]purge
- Use --purge to delete local files and directories that do not exist
on the Chef server. By default, if a role, cookbook, etc. does not exist
on the Chef server, the local file for said role will be left alone and
NOT deleted. Default: --no-purge.
- --[no-]recurse
- Use --no-recurse to disable downloading a directory recursively.
Default: --recurse.
- --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.
- -s URL, --server-url
URL
- The URL for the Chef server.
- -u USER, --user
USER
- The user name used by knife to sign requests made by the API client to the
Chef 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
- Use to respond to all confirmation prompts with "Yes". knife
will not ask for confirmation.
- -z,
--local-mode
- Use to run the chef-client in local mode. This allows all commands that
work against the Chef server to also work against the local
chef-repo.
Examples
To download the entire chef-repo from the Chef server, browse to
the top level of the chef-repo and enter:
To download the cookbooks/ directory from the Chef 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 Chef
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
Chef 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 Chef server,
browse to the top level of the chef-repo and enter:
or from anywhere in the chef-repo, enter:
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