NAME¶

knife-data-bag - The man page for the knife data bag subcommand. A data bag is a global variable that is stored as JSON data and is accessible from a server. A data bag is indexed for searching and can be loaded by a recipe or accessed during a search. The contents of a data bag can vary, but they often include sensitive information (such as database passwords). A data bag item may be encrypted using shared secret encryption. This allows each data bag item to store confidential information (such as a database password) or to be managed in a source control system (without plain-text data appearing in revision history). Each data bag item may be encrypted individually; if a data bag contains multiple encrypted data bag items, these data bag items are not required to share the same encryption keys. The knife data bag subcommand is used to manage arbitrary stores of globally available JSON data.

COMMON OPTIONS¶

The following options may be used with any of the arguments available to the knife data bag subcommand:

CREATE¶

The create argument is used to add a data bag to the server. Syntax This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife data bag create DATA_BAG_NAME [DATA_BAG_ITEM] (options)

Options This argument has the following options:

Note

For encrypted data bag items, use either --secret or --secret-file, not both.

Examples To create a data bag named "admins", enter:

$ knife data bag create admins

to return:

Created data_bag[admins]

DELETE¶

The delete argument is used to delete a data bag or a data bag item from a server. Syntax This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife data bag delete DATA_BAG_NAME [DATA_BAG_ITEM] (options)

Options This argument has the following options:
Examples

$ knife data bag delete data_bag_name

To delete an item named "charlie", enter:

$ knife data bag delete admins charlie

Type Y to confirm a deletion.

EDIT¶

The edit argument is used to edit the data contained in a data bag. If encryption is being used, the data bag will be decrypted, the data will be made available in the $EDITOR, and then encrypted again before saving it to the server. Syntax This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife data bag edit DATA_BAG_NAME [DATA_BAG_ITEM] (options)

Options This argument has the following options:

Note

For encrypted data bag items, use either --secret or --secret-file, not both.

Examples To edit the contents of a data bag, enter:

$ knife data bag edit admins

To edit an item named "charlie" that is contained in a data bag named "admins", enter:

$ knife data bag edit admins charlie

to open the $EDITOR. Once opened, you can update the data before saving it to the server. For example, by changing:

{
   "id": "charlie"
}

to:

{
   "id": "charlie",
   "uid": 1005,
   "gid":"ops",
   "shell":"/bin/zsh",
   "comment":"Crazy Charlie"
}

FROM FILE¶

The from file argument is used to create a data bag on the server from a file. The path to the data bag file must specify one of the following:
If the name of a data bag is specified, Knife will search for the data bag in ./data_bags/bag_name/file. Once opened, the JSON file should be a hash that contains at least an ID key which represents the name of the data bag item.

Warning

A chef-client must be version 11.6 (or higher) when using the knife data bag from file argument with the Enterprise Chef or Open Source Chef version 11 servers.

Syntax This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife data bag from file DATA_BAG_NAME_or_PATH

Options This argument has the following options:

Note

For encrypted data bag items, use either --secret or --secret-file, not both.

Examples To create a data bag on the server from a file:

$ knife data bag from file "path to JSON file"

To create a data bag named "devops_data" that contains encrypted data, enter:

$ knife data bag from file devops_data --secret-file "path to decryption file"

LIST¶

The list argument is used to view a list of data bags that are currently available on the server. Syntax This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife data bag list

Options This argument has the following options:
Examples

$ knife data bag list

SHOW¶

The show argument is used to view the contents of a data bag. Syntax This argument has the following syntax:

$ knife data bag show DATA_BAG_NAME (options)

Options This argument has the following options:

Note

For encrypted data bag items, use either --secret or --secret-file, not both.

Examples

$ knife data bag show admins

to return something like:

charlie

To show the contents of a specific item within data bag, enter:

$ knife data bag show admins charlie

to return:

comment:  Crazy Charlie
gid:      ops
id:       charlie
shell:    /bin/zsh
uid:      1005

To show the contents of a data bag named "passwords" with an item that contains encrypted data named "mysql", enter:

$ knife data bag show passwords mysql

to return:

## sample:
{
  "id": "mysql",
  "pass": "trywgFA6R70NO28PNhMpGhEvKBZuxouemnbnAUQsUyo=\n",
  "user": "e/p+8WJYVHY9fHcEgAAReg==\n"
}

To show the decrypted contents of the same data bag, enter:

$ knife data bag show --secret-file /path/to/decryption/file passwords mysql

to return:

## sample:
{
   "id": "mysql",
   "pass": "thesecret123",
   "user": "fred"
}

To view information in JSON format, use the -F common option as part of the command like this:

$ knife data bag show admins -F json

Other formats available include text, yaml, and pp.

AUTHOR¶

Chef