knife ssh

Use the knife ssh subcommand to invoke SSH commands (in parallel) on a subset of nodes within an organization, based on the results of a search query made to the Chef server.

Syntax

This subcommand has the following syntax:

$ knife ssh SEARCH_QUERY SSH_COMMAND (options)

Options

Note

Review the list of common options available to this (and all) knife subcommands and plugins.

This subcommand has the following options:

-a SSH_ATTR, --attribute SSH_ATTR: The attribute used when opening an SSH connection. The default attribute is the FQDN of the host. Other possible values include a public IP address, a private IP address, or a hostname.
-A, --forward-agent: Enable SSH agent forwarding.
-C NUM, --concurrency NUM: The number of allowed concurrent connections.
-G GATEWAY, --ssh-gateway GATEWAY: The SSH tunnel or gateway that is used to run a bootstrap action on a machine that is not accessible from the workstation.
-i IDENTITY_FILE, --identity-file IDENTIFY_FILE: The SSH identity file used for authentication. Key-based authentication is recommended.
-m, --manual-list: Define a search query as a space-separated list of servers. If there is more than one item in the list, put quotes around the entire list. For example: --manual-list "server01 server 02 server 03"
--[no-]host-key-verify: Use --no-host-key-verify to disable host key verification. Default setting: --host-key-verify.
OTHER: The shell type. Possible values: interactive, screen, tmux, macterm, or cssh. (csshx is deprecated in favor of cssh.)
-p PORT, --ssh-port PORT: The SSH port.
-P PASSWORD, --ssh-password PASSWORD: The SSH password. This can be used to pass the password directly on the command line. If this option is not specified (and a password is required) knife prompts for the password.
SEARCH_QUERY: The search query used to return a list of servers to be accessed using SSH and the specified SSH_COMMAND. This option uses the same syntax as the search subcommand.
SSH_COMMAND: The command to be run against the results of a search query.
-x USER_NAME, --ssh-user USER_NAME: The SSH user name.

Note

See knife.rb for more information about how to add certain knife options as settings in the knife.rb file.

Examples

The following examples show how to use this knife subcommand:

Find server uptime

To find the uptime of all of web servers running Ubuntu on the Amazon EC2 platform, enter:

$ knife ssh "role:web" "uptime" -x ubuntu -a ec2.public_hostname

to return something like:

ec2-174-129-127-206.compute-1.amazonaws.com  13:50:47 up 1 day, 23:26,  1 user,  load average: 0.25, 0.18, 0.11
ec2-67-202-63-102.compute-1.amazonaws.com    13:50:47 up 1 day, 23:33,  1 user,  load average: 0.12, 0.13, 0.10
ec2-184-73-9-250.compute-1.amazonaws.com     13:50:48 up 16:45,  1 user,  load average: 0.30, 0.22, 0.13
ec2-75-101-240-230.compute-1.amazonaws.com   13:50:48 up 1 day, 22:59,  1 user,  load average: 0.24, 0.17, 0.11
ec2-184-73-60-141.compute-1.amazonaws.com    13:50:48 up 1 day, 23:30,  1 user,  load average: 0.32, 0.17, 0.15

Run the chef-client on all nodes

$ knife ssh 'name:*' 'sudo chef-client'

Force a chef-client run

To force a chef-client run on all of the web servers running Ubuntu on the Amazon EC2 platform, enter:

$ knife ssh "role:web" "sudo chef-client" -x ubuntu -a ec2.public_hostname

to return something like:

ec2-67-202-63-102.compute-1.amazonaws.com   [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:37 +0000] INFO: Starting Chef Run (Version 0.9.10)
ec2-174-129-127-206.compute-1.amazonaws.com [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:37 +0000] INFO: Starting Chef Run (Version 0.9.10)
ec2-184-73-9-250.compute-1.amazonaws.com    [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:38 +0000] INFO: Starting Chef Run (Version 0.9.10)
ec2-75-101-240-230.compute-1.amazonaws.com  [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:38 +0000] INFO: Starting Chef Run (Version 0.9.10)
ec2-184-73-60-141.compute-1.amazonaws.com   [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:38 +0000] INFO: Starting Chef Run (Version 0.9.10)
ec2-174-129-127-206.compute-1.amazonaws.com [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:39 +0000] INFO: Chef Run complete in 1.419243 seconds
ec2-174-129-127-206.compute-1.amazonaws.com [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:39 +0000] INFO: cleaning the checksum cache
ec2-174-129-127-206.compute-1.amazonaws.com [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:39 +0000] INFO: Running report handlers
ec2-174-129-127-206.compute-1.amazonaws.com [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:39 +0000] INFO: Report handlers complete
ec2-67-202-63-102.compute-1.amazonaws.com   [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:39 +0000] INFO: Chef Run complete in 1.578265 seconds
ec2-67-202-63-102.compute-1.amazonaws.com   [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:39 +0000] INFO: cleaning the checksum cache
ec2-67-202-63-102.compute-1.amazonaws.com   [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:39 +0000] INFO: Running report handlers
ec2-67-202-63-102.compute-1.amazonaws.com   [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:39 +0000] INFO: Report handlers complete
ec2-184-73-9-250.compute-1.amazonaws.com    [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: Chef Run complete in 1.638884 seconds
ec2-184-73-9-250.compute-1.amazonaws.com    [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: cleaning the checksum cache
ec2-184-73-9-250.compute-1.amazonaws.com    [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: Running report handlers
ec2-184-73-9-250.compute-1.amazonaws.com    [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: Report handlers complete
ec2-75-101-240-230.compute-1.amazonaws.com  [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: Chef Run complete in 1.540257 seconds
ec2-75-101-240-230.compute-1.amazonaws.com  [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: cleaning the checksum cache
ec2-75-101-240-230.compute-1.amazonaws.com  [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: Running report handlers
ec2-75-101-240-230.compute-1.amazonaws.com  [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: Report handlers complete
ec2-184-73-60-141.compute-1.amazonaws.com   [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: Chef Run complete in 1.502489 seconds
ec2-184-73-60-141.compute-1.amazonaws.com   [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: cleaning the checksum cache
ec2-184-73-60-141.compute-1.amazonaws.com   [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: Running report handlers
ec2-184-73-60-141.compute-1.amazonaws.com   [Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:40 +0000] INFO: Report handlers complete

Run a command based on search query

To query for all nodes that have the webserver role and then use SSH to run the command sudo chef-client, enter:

$ knife ssh "role:webserver" "sudo chef-client"

Upgrade all nodes

$ knife ssh name:* "sudo aptitude upgrade -y"

Specify the shell type

To specify the shell type used on the nodes returned by a search query:

$ knife ssh roles:opscode-omnitruck macterm

where screen is one of the following values: cssh, interactive, macterm, screen, or tmux. If the node does not have the shell type installed, knife will return an error similar to the following:

you need the rb-appscript gem to use knife ssh macterm.
`(sudo) gem    install rb-appscript` to install
ERROR: LoadError: cannot load such file -- appscript

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https://docs-archive.chef.io/release/11-18/knife_ssh.html