Platforms

[edit on GitHub]

Chef software is supported on the various operating systems (platforms) listed below. To see which versions of our software we currently support, see the Supported Versions page.

Platforms

The sections below list the platforms that Chef Software Inc. supports. Support is divided into two levels:

  • Commercial Support consists of the platforms that are supported as part of a paid commercial support contract with Chef Software Inc.
  • Community Support is made up of platforms for which support is only available through the Chef community

Any platforms or versions not explicitly listed here are unsupported, both commercially and by the community.

Commercial support generally follows Chef community support policies, which track the lifecycle policies of the underlying operating system vendor.

In all cases (beyond community support), a maintenance contract with Chef Software Inc. is required in order to open support tickets and get SLA-based assistance from our support desk.

Chef Infra Client

Commercial Support

Important

Chef Infra Client 16 currently cannot build for Solaris

Due to the impact of COVID-19, Chef’s employees cannot access our physical data center, which is a requirement for Solaris support. Until we can physically access the data center, Solaris builds on Chef Infra Client 16 will not be supported. They are available on Chef Infra Client 15, and we will begin building for Chef Infra Client 16 as soon as we responsibly can.

The following table lists the commercially-supported platforms and versions for Chef Infra Client:

Platform Architecture Version
AIX powerpc 7.1 (TL5 SP2 or higher, recommended), 7.2
Amazon Linux x86_64, aarch64 (2.x only) 2013+ and 2.0
CentOS x86_64, ppc64le (7.x only), ppc64 (7.x only), aarch64 (7.x / 8.x only) 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
Debian x86_64aarch64 (10.x only) 9, 10
FreeBSD amd64 11.x, 12.x
macOS x86_64 10.14, 10.15, 11.0
Oracle Enterprise Linux x86_64aarch64 (7.x / 8.x only) 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x86_64, ppc64le (7.x only), ppc64 (7.x only), aarch64 (7.x / 8.x only) 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
Solaris sparc, i86pc 11.2, 11.3, 11.4
SUSE Enterprise Linux Server x86_64, aarch64 (15.x only) 12, 15
Ubuntu (LTS releases) x86_64,aarch64 (18.04/20.04 only) 16.04, 18.04, 20.04
Microsoft Windows x86, x64 8.1, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 10 (all channels except "insider" builds), 2019 (Long-term servicing channel (LTSC), both Desktop Experience and Server Core)

Community Support

The following platforms are supported only via the community:

Platform Architecture Version
Arch Linux x86_64 current version
Fedora x86_64 current non-EOL releases
Gentoo x86_64 current version
openSUSE x86_64 15.x
Scientific Linux x86_64 6.x, 7.x
Ubuntu x86_64 Current non-LTS releases
Windows x64 Windows Server, Semi-annual channel (SAC) (Server Core only)

Chef Workstation

Commercial Support

The following table lists the commercially-supported platforms and versions for the Chef Workstation:

Platform Architecture Version
macOS x86_64 10.14, 10.15, 11.0
Debian x86_64 9, 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x86_64 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
Ubuntu x86_64 16.04, 18.04, 20.04
Microsoft Windows x64 8.1, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 10 (all channels except "insider" builds), 2019 (Long-term servicing channel (LTSC), Desktop Experience only)

Chef InSpec

Commercial Support

The following table lists the commercially-supported platforms and versions for Chef InSpec:

Platform Architecture Version
Amazon Linux x86_64, aarch64 2013+ and 2.0
Debian x86_64aarch64 (10.x only) 9.x, 10.x
macOS x86_64 10.14, 10.15, 11.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x86_64, aarch64 (7.x and 8.x only) 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
SUSE Enterprise Linux Server x86_64 12, 15
Ubuntu x86_64 16.04, 18.04, 20.04
Microsoft Windows x86_64 8.1, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 10 (all channels except "insider" builds), 2019

Chef InSpec Target Mode (inspec --target) may be functional on additional platforms, versions, and architectures but are not validated by Chef Software, Inc.

ChefDK

Commercial Support

The following table lists the commercially-supported platforms and versions for ChefDK:

Platform Architecture Version
Debian x86_64 9.x, 10.x
macOS x86_64 10.14, 10.15, 11.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x86_64 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
SUSE Enterprise Linux Server x86_64 12, 15
Ubuntu x86_64 16.04, 18.04, 20.04
Microsoft Windows x86, x64 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 10 (all channels except "insider" builds), 2019 (Long-term servicing channel (LTSC), Desktop Experience only)

Community Support

The following platforms are supported only via the community:

Platform Architecture Version
openSUSE x86_64 15.x
Scientific Linux x86_64 6.x, 7.x

Chef Infra Server

Commercial Support

The following table lists the commercially-supported platforms and versions for the Chef Infra Server:

Platform Architecture Version
CentOS x86_64 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
Oracle Enterprise Linux x86_64 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x86_64 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
SUSE Enterprise Linux Server x86_64 12, 15
Ubuntu x86_64 16.04, 18.04

Chef Automate Server

Commercial Support

Commercial support for the Chef Automate 2 Server is available for platforms that use:

  • a Linux kernel version of 3.2 or greater
  • systemd as the init system
  • useradd
  • curl or wget

Chef Automate Job Runners

Commercial Support

Chef Automate Job Runners are supported on the Commercial Support platforms for Chef Automate Server listed above as well as on the following platforms:

Platform Architecture Version
macOS x86_64 10.12

Chef Push Jobs Client

Commercial Support

The following table lists the commercially-supported platforms for the Chef Push Jobs client:

Platform Architecture Version
AIX powerpc 7.1 (TL5 SP2 or higher, recommended)
CentOS i386, x86_64 6.x, 7.x
Debian x86_64 9
macOS x86_64 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, 10.14
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x86_64 6.x, 7.x
Ubuntu (LTS releases) i386, x86_64 16.04, 18.04
Microsoft Windows x86, x64 2012, 2012 R2, 10

Chef Push Jobs Server

Commercial Support

The following table lists the commercially-supported platforms for the Chef Push Jobs server:

Platform Architecture Version
CentOS x86_64 6.x, 7.x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x86_64 6.x, 7.x
Ubuntu (LTS releases) x86_64 16.04

Chef Backend

Commercial Support

The following table lists the commercially-supported platforms for Chef Backend, the high-availability solution for Chef Infra Server:

Platform Architecture Version
CentOS x86_64 6.x, 7.x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x86_64 6.x, 7.x
Ubuntu (LTS releases) x86_64 16.04, 18.04

Chef Manage

Commercial Support

The following table lists the commercially-supported platforms for Chef Manage:

Platform Architecture Version
CentOS x86_64 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x86_64 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
Ubuntu (LTS releases) x86_64 16.04, 18.04

Platform End-of-Life Policy

Chef’s products on particular platforms and versions generally reach end-of-life on the same date as the vendor EOL milestone for that operating systems. Because different vendors use different terminology, the following table clarifies when Chef products are end-of-life according to those vendors' terms:

Platform Vendor End-of-Life
Apple macOS Apple generally supports the last three macOS releases, for example: 10.14, 10.15, and 11.0. Apple does not officially publish EOL dates.
Debian End of maintenance updates
Enterprise Linux (covers Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS) End of Production 3
FreeBSD End of Life
IBM AIX IBM End of Support Date
Microsoft Windows End of Extended Support
Oracle Enterprise Linux Premier Support Ends
Oracle Solaris Premier Support Ends
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server General Support Ends
Ubuntu Linux End of maintenance updates

At Chef’s option, additional support may be provided to customers beyond the vendor end-of-life in the above table. As such, the following table indicates upcoming product end-of-life dates for particular platforms. On the Chef end-of-life date, Chef discontinues building software for that platform and version.

Platform and Version Vendor End-of-Life Date Chef End-of-Life Date
Apple macOS 10.13 Nov 13th, 2020 Nov 13th, 2020
Debian 7 (Wheezy) May 31st, 2018 May 31st, 2018
Debian 8 (Jessie) June 6th, 2020 June 6th, 2020
Enterprise Linux 5 (covers Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS) April 30, 2017 December 31, 2017
Enterprise Linux 6 (covers Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS) November 30, 2020 November 30, 2020
FreeBSD 10-STABLE October 31, 2018 October 31, 2018
FreeBSD 11-STABLE September 30, 2021 September 30, 2021
IBM AIX 6.1 April 30, 2017 December 31, 2017
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (SP2)/R2 (SP1) January 13, 2015 January 14, 2020
Microsoft Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 October 10, 2023 October 10, 2023
Microsoft Windows Server 2016 November 11, 2027 November 11, 2027
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 October 10, 2028 October 10, 2028
Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 June 30, 2017 December 31, 2017
Oracle Enterprise Linux 6 March 31, 2021 March 31, 2021
Oracle Solaris 10 January 30, 2018 January 30, 2018
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 March 31, 2019 March 31, 2019
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 October 31, 2024 October 31, 2024
Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS April 30, 2017 April 30, 2017
Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS April 30, 2019 April 30, 2019
Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS April 30, 2021 April 30, 2021

© Chef Software, Inc.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
The Chef™ Mark and Chef Logo are either registered trademarks/service marks or trademarks/servicemarks of Chef, in the United States and other countries and are used with Chef Inc's permission.
We are not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Chef Inc.
https://docs.chef.io/platforms/