knife-download - Online in the Cloud

PROGRAM:

NAME

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:

$ knife download /

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:

$ knife download roles

or from anywhere in the chef-repo, enter:

$ knife download /roles

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

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