Node enrollment overview

Node enrollment brings nodes under management by Chef 360 Platform.

Enrollment methods

You can enroll nodes using the following methods.

Bulk enrollment

With bulk enrollment, you define the nodes, credentials, and enrollment settings in a CSV file that’s uploaded to Chef 360 Platform. Once uploaded, Chef 360 Platform handles the process of connecting to and enrolling each node defined in the file.

Bulk enrollment is performed from the server side and supports full enrollment.

Cookbook-based enrollment

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

Cookbook-based enrollment is performed from the client side and supports either full or partial node enrollment.

Single-node enrollment

With single-node enrollment, you define the credentials and enrollment settings for each node 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 full enrollment.

Full and partial enrollment

You can fully or partially enroll nodes with Chef 360 Platform.

With full enrollment, the Node Management agent and Chef Habitat are installed on each node and the Node Management agent runs as a Habitat-supervised service. Chef 360 Platform manages skill credentials, settings, installation, upgrade, and removal.

You can fully enroll nodes with the following methods:

• bulk enrollment
• cookbook-based enrollment
• single-node enrollment

With partial enrollment, the Node Management agent is installed on each node, but Node Management is installed as a native service (not running under the Habitat Supervisor or Habitat package manager). Chef 360 Platform can detect skills and skill credential management, but can’t install, upgrade, configure skills.

Only use partial enrollment if Chef Habitat isn’t supported on the node’s operating system and architecture, but you want to install and run a skill like Courier Runner. For example, on macOS nodes or nodes that have ARM CPU architecture.

You can partially enroll nodes with the following methods:

• cookbook-based enrollment

Client-side and server-side enrollment

You can enroll nodes from either the client side or the server side.

With client-side enrollment, you generate credentials and install Chef Habitat on each node. You install skills and agents manually, with a script, or with a cookbook.

You can enroll nodes from the client side with following methods:

• cookbook-based enrollment

With server-side enrollment, Chef 360 Platform connects to each node and installs Chef Habitat, Chef Node Management, and any skills or agents assigned to a node cohort.

You can enroll nodes from the server side with following methods:

• bulk enrollment
• single-node enrollment