Explore scripts vs infrastructure as code by contrasting procedural scripts with declarative end-state blueprints; define the desired state using tools like Chef, Puppet, or Ansible, not procedures.

Discover that infrastructure as code goes beyond chef and puppet by embracing any declarative tool that defines infrastructure state and automates provisioning across cloud and local environments.

Explore the fundamental building blocks of Chef, resources and recipes, and learn their syntax, then compare multiple approaches to apply recipes on a single-node standalone machine with the Chef client.

Master the syntax check, dry run, and applying recipes with Chef, using Ruby-based syntax checks, Chef client in local mode, and an in-memory server to validate changes before deployment.

Use the execute resource to run any command or script, with conditionals and create options to ensure idempotence. Manage notifications and selective execution to avoid repeated downloads or actions.

Learn to create Chef recipes to install Tomcat and its dependencies, using file-based and generated approaches, with the EPEL repository setup. Verify through Kitchen converge, service control, and web access.

Learn to set up a chef server and workstation using the starter kit and knife for authentication, compare hosted versus on-premise servers, and test with kitchen and docker locally.

Explore node objects and data attributes powering Chef cookbooks and templates. See how Ohai provides system data, attribute precedence, and environments.

Learn to define and use user defined attributes in data driven cookbooks, set default values, and manage precedence to override properties from environment or role in recipes and templates.

Convert a recipe into a cookbook and apply platform specific configuration differences using attributes and conditionals, with knife, kitchen converge, and Ohai platform family to tailor service names.

Learn to template motd configurations with chef by creating a single template that prints per-node details (hostname, IP address, memory, organization) using ohai data and node attributes.