KNIFE-DOWNLOAD(1)

NAME
knife-download - The man page for the knife download subcommand.

The knife download subcommand is used to download roles, cookbooks, environments, nodes, and data bags from the server to the current working directory.. It can be used to back up data on the server, inspect the state of one or more files, or to extract out-of-process changes users may have made to files on the server, such as if a user made a change that bypassed version source control. This subcommand is often used in conjunction with knife diff, which can be used to see exactly what changes will be downloaded, and then knife upload, which does the opposite of knife download.

Common Options

The following options can be run with all Knife sub-commands and plug-ins:

-c CONFIG, --config CONFIG
    The configuration file to use.

--color
    Indicates that colored output will be used.

-d, --disable-editing
    Indicates that $EDITOR will not be opened; data will be accepted as-is.

--defaults
    Indicates that Knife will use the default value, instead of asking a user to provide one.

-e EDITOR, --editor EDITOR
    The $EDITOR that is used for all interactive commands.

-E ENVIRONMENT, --environment ENVIRONMENT
    The name of the environment. When this option is added to a command, the command will run only against the named environment.

-f FILE_NAME, --file FILE_NAME
    Indicates that the private key will be saved to a specified file name.

-F FORMAT, --format FORMAT
    The output format: summary (default), text, json, yaml, and pp.

-h, --help
    Shows help for the command.

-k KEY, --key KEY
    The private key that Knife will use to sign requests made by the API client to the server.

--no-color
    Indicates that color will not be used in the output.

-p PASSWORD, --password PASSWORD
    The user password.

--print-after
    Indicates that data will be shown after a destructive operation.

-s URL, --server-url URL
    The URL for the server.

-u USER, --user USER
    The user name used by Knife to sign requests made by the API client to the server. Authentication will fail if the user name does not match the private key.

-v, --version
    The version of the chef-client.

-V, --verbose
    Set for more verbose outputs. Use -VV for maximum verbosity.

-y, --yes
    Indicates that the response to all confirmation prompts will be "Yes" (and that Knife will not ask for confirmation).

    Syntax

    This argument has the following syntax:

    $ knife download [PATTERN...] (options)

    Options

    This subcommand has the following options:

--chef-repo-path PATH
    The path to the chef-repo. This setting will override the default path to the chef-repo. Default: same as specified by chef_repo_path in config.rb.

--concurrency
    The number of allowed concurrent connections. Default: 10.

--force
    Use --force to download files even when the file on the hard drive is identical to the object on the server (role, cookbook, etc.). By default, files are compared to see if they have equivalent content, and local files are only overwritten if they are different. Default: --no-force.

-n, --dry-run
    Indicates that no action is taken and that results are only printed out. Default: false.

--[no-]diff
    Indicates that only new and modified files will be downloaded. Set to false to download all files. Default: --diff.

--[no-]recurse
    Use --no-recurse to disable downloading a directory recursively. Default: --recurse.

--purge
    Use --purge to delete local files and directories that do not exist on the server. By default, if a role, cookbook, etc. does not exist on the server, the local file for said role will be left alone and NOT deleted. Default: --no-purge.

--repo-mode MODE
    The layout of the local chef-repo. Possible values: static, everything, or hosted_everything. Use static for just roles, environments, cookbooks, and data bags. By default, everything and hosted_everything are dynamically selected depending on the server type. Default: everything / hosted_everything.

    Examples

    To download the entire chef-repo from the server, browse to the top level of the chef-repo and enter:

    $ knife download /

    To download the cookbooks/ directory from the server, browse to the top level of the chef-repo and enter:

    $ knife download cookbooks

    or from anywhere in the chef-repo, enter:

    $ knife download /cookbooks

    To download the environments/ directory from the server, browse to the top level of the chef-repo and enter:

    $ knife download environments

    or from anywhere in the chef-repo, enter:

    $ knife download /environments

    To download an environment named "production" from the server, browse to the top level of the chef-repo and enter:

    $ knife download environments/production.json

    or from the environments/ directory, enter:

    $ knife download production.json

    To download the roles/ directory from the server, browse to the top level of the chef-repo and enter:

    $ knife download roles

    or from anywhere in the chef-repo, enter:

    $ knife download /roles

    To download all cookbooks that start with "apache" and belong to the "webserver" role, browse to the top level of the chef-repo and enter:

    $  knife download cookbooks/apache\* roles/webserver.json

AUTHOR
Opscode