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After a chef client is bootstrapped, if the IP address changes will the machine continue to update?

Posted on September 5, 2022

I was able to successfully set up Chef Workstation, Manage, Core Server and a Client. I am using Chef for onprem and DigitalOcean Ubuntu machines. I understand that the DigitalOcean instances will have static IPs. But for the onprem machines they won’t. As they’ll be moved to various locations. I don’t see where this is addressed by Chef.

Meaning I successfully added a node (node-1), it shows up in Chef Manage with the IP address I used to ssh into the onprem machine. I was able to then configure that machine with my cookbooks. Now that this is done, I am going to ship the product to someone else. When they set up the device on their own Internet service, their IP will change.

Question is, since it has my Chef client configured do I have to do anything else or will Chef Manage console be updated with the correct IP address? Aka will my Chef infra core server receive an updated IP address. And therefore will be able to receive future cookbook uploads?



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In your Chef setup, your nodes communicate with the Chef Infra Server during their convergence process. This communication includes updating the node’s details such as its IP address. Therefore, even if your on-premises machine gets a new IP address when moved to a new location, Chef Manages should reflect these changes during the next convergence.

However, this means the node must be able to reach the Chef Infra Server after the move. The connection must not be affected by any firewall rules or network policies at the new location.

To ensure continuous communication between your nodes and the Chef Infra Server, always verify that the node can resolve the FQDN or IP of your Chef Infra Server and can establish connections on ports used by Chef (default is 443).

For more details on Chef node communication, please refer to the Chef Infra documentation.

Hope that this helps!

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