1. knife-role(1)
2. Chef Manual
3. knife-role(1)

## NAME

`knife-role` - Group common configuration settings

## SYNOPSIS

knife role sub-command (options)

## ROLE SUB-COMMANDS

The following `role` subcommands are available:

## LIST

knife role list (options)

`-w`, `--with-uri`
  Show corresponding URIs

List roles.

## SHOW

knife role show ROLE (options)

`-a`, `--attribute ATTR`
  Show only one attribute

Show a specific role.

## CREATE

knife role create ROLE (options)

`-d`, `--description`
  The role description

Create a new role.

## EDIT

knife role edit ROLE (options)

Edit a role.

## FROM FILE

knife role from file FILE (options)

Create or update a role from a role Ruby DSL (`.rb`) or JSON file.

## DELETE

knife role delete ROLE (options)

Delete a role.

## BULK DELETE

knife role bulk delete REGEX (options)

Delete roles on the Chef Server based on a regular expression. The regular expression (REGEX) should be in quotes, not in //'s.

## DESCRIPTION

Roles provide a mechanism to group repeated configuration settings. Roles are data structures that contain default_attributes, and override_attributes, which are nested hashes of configuration settings, and a run_list, which is an ordered list of recipes and roles that should be applied to a host by chef-client.

default_attributes will be overridden if they conflict with a value on a node that includes the role. Conversely, override_attributes will override any values set on nodes that apply them.

When chef-client(8) configures a host, it will "expand" the run_list included in that host's node data. The expansion process will recursively replace any roles in the run_list with that role's run_list.

## SEE ALSO

knife-node(1) knife-environment(1) http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Roles http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Attributes

## AUTHOR

Chef was written by Adam Jacob adam@opscode.com with many contributions from the community.

## DOCUMENTATION

This manual page was written by Joshua Timberman joshua@opscode.com. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and / or modify this document under the terms of the Apache 2.0 License.

## CHEF

Knife is distributed with Chef. http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home

1. Chef 0.10.8
2. December 2011
3. knife-role(1)