`An Ansible tutorial <https://serversforhackers.com/an-ansible-tutorial/>`_ is also a

great and detailed introduction to getting started with Ansible.

`Chef <https://www.chef.io/chef/>`_ is a systems and cloud infrastructure automation

framework that makes it easy to deploy servers and applications to any physical,

virtual, or cloud location. In case this is your choice for configuration management,

you will primarily use Ruby to write your infrastructure code.

Chef clients run on every server that is part of your infrastructure and these regularly

check with your Chef server to ensure your system is always aligned and represents the

desired state. Since each individual server has its own distinct Chef client, each server

configures itself and this distributed approach makes Chef a scalable automation platform.

Chef works by using custom recipes (configuration elements), implemented in cookbooks. Cookbooks, which are basically

packages for infrastructure choices, are usually stored in your Chef server.

Read the `Digital Ocean tutorial series <https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-a-chef-server-workstation-and-client-on-ubuntu-vps-instances>`_ on chef to learn how to create a simple Chef Server.

To create a simple cookbook the `knife <https://docs.chef.io/knife.html>`_ command is used:

.. code-block:: console

`Getting started with Chef <http://gettingstartedwithchef.com/first-steps-with-chef.html>`_

is a good starting point for Chef Beginners and many community maintained cookbooks that can

serve as a good reference or tweaked to serve your infrustructure configuration needs can be

found on the `Chef Supermarket <https://supermarket.chef.io/cookbooks>`_.