Configuration files for chef-solo and knife, so they all use directories inside the chef repo, instead of default global pathes such as /etc, /var

knife.rb

log_level                :info
log_location             STDOUT
node_name                'solo'
client_key               File.expand_path('../solo.pem', __FILE__)
cache_type               'BasicFile'
cache_options( :path => File.expand_path('../checksums', __FILE__))
cookbook_path [ File.expand_path('../../cookbooks', __FILE__) ]

solo.pem

You can generate this file using `ssh-keygen -f .chef/solo.pem`. It is really not used but must be here.

solo.rb

node_name 'solo'
file_cache_path File.expand_path('../cache', __FILE__)
file_backup_path File.expand_path('../backup', __FILE__)
cookbook_path File.expand_path('../cookbooks', __FILE__)
role_path File.expand_path('../roles', __FILE__)

After check out chef-repo and installed gem chef. The default pathes used by chef-solo and knife are in some global locations, such as /etc, /var. This gist demonstrats how to put all configuration files, data files and cache files just inside chef repo.

1. Put solo.rb in top directory of chef repo. Run chef-solo using option -c

chef-solo -c solo.rb

2. Put knife.rb into subdirectory .chef (create it if it is not there).
3. Genreate a private key as .chef/sola.pem

Thanks for sharing this, appreciated!

glad I found this opscode documentation is confusing. They really want you to configure chef hosted or chef server !

you should also add

data_bag_path File.expand_path('../data_bags', __FILE__)

it's really helpfull with https://github.com/thbishop/knife-solo_data_bag