Installing Chef on Windows

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Chef Workstation

Start your infrastructure automation quickly and easily with Chef Workstation Chef Workstation gives you everything you need to get started with Chef — ad hoc remote execution, remote scanning, configuration tasks, cookbook creation tools as well as robust dependency and testing software — all in one easy-to-install package.

Chef Workstation replaces ChefDK, combining all the existing features with new features, such as ad-hoc task support and the new Chef Workstation desktop application. Chef will continue to maintain ChefDK, but new development will take place in Chef Workstation without back-porting features.

Download Chef Workstation

Chef Workstation Supported Platforms

Supported Host Operating Systems:

Supported Host Operating System
Platform Version
Apple macOS 10.13, 10.14, 10.15
Microsoft Windows 10, Server 2012, Server 2012 R2, Server 2016, Server 2019
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / CentOS 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04
Debian 8.x, 9.x
Supported Target Operating System
Platform Version
Microsoft Windows 10, Server 2012, Server 2012 R2, Server 2016, Server 2019
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x, 7.x, 8.x
SUSE Enterprise Linux Server 12 SP1+, 15.x
Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04
Debian 8.x, 9.x

Chef Workstation System Requirements

Minimum system requirements:

  • RAM: 2GB
  • Disk: 4GB
  • Running minimum settings may limit your ability to take advantage of Chef Workstation tools such as Test Kitchen which creates and manages virtualized test environments.

Recommended system requirements:

  • RAM: 4GB
  • Disk 8GB

Chef Workstation App

  • Windows: No additional requirements
  • Mac: No additional requirements
  • Linux:

Installing ChefDK

In some cases, such as if you’re working with older or unsupported systems, you may need to use ChefDK instead of Chef Workstation. Download ChefDK by following the installation instructions on Installing ChefDK.

  1. Visit the ChefDK downloads page and select the appropriate package for your Windows version. Select the Download button.
  2. Follow the steps to accept the license and install ChefDK. You will have the option to change your install location; by default the installer uses the C:\opscode\chefdk\ directory.

Verify the Chef Workstation or ChefDK Installation

To verify the installation, run:

chef -v

Which returns the versions of all installed Chef tools:

Chef Workstation version: 0.14.16
Chef Infra Client version: 15.6.10
Chef InSpec version: 4.18.39
Chef CLI version: 2.0.0
Test Kitchen version: 2.3.4
Cookstyle version: 5.19.9

Spaces and Directories

Directories that are used by Chef on Windows cannot have spaces. For example, C:\Users\User Name will not work, but C:\Users\UserName will. Chef commands may fail if used against a directory with a space in its name.

Top-level Directory Names

Windows will throw errors when path name lengths are too long. For this reason, it’s often helpful to use a very short top-level directory, much like what is done in UNIX and Linux. For example, Chef uses /opt/ to install ChefDK on macOS. A similar approach can be done on Microsoft Windows, by creating a top-level directory with a short name. For example: C:\chef.

Install a Code Editor

A good visual code editor is not a requirement for working with Chef, but a good code editor can save you time. A code editor should support the following: themes, plugins, snippets, syntax Ruby code coloring/highlighting, multiple cursors, a tree view of the entire folder/repository you are working with, and a Git integration.

These are a few common editors:

Chef support in editors:

Install the Windows Tools