Chef InSpec provides an easy method to create an executable Chef Habitat package for a Chef InSpec profile. When run via the Chef Habitat Supervisor, the package will run Chef InSpec with your profile and write out its findings to the supervisor log. This provides the ability to ship your compliance controls alongside your Chef Habitat-packaged application and continuously run InSpec, providing you *Continuous Compliance.*
Chef Habitat by Chef is our new Application Automation tool that aims to make it easy, safe, and fast to build, deploy, and manage applications. From build dependencies, runtime dependencies, dynamic configuration, and service discovery (just to name a few), Chef Habitat packages the automation with the application instead of relying on an underlying platform.
After creating a Chef Habitat package for a Chef InSpec profile (see CLI commands below) and uploading the package to a Chef Habitat Depot or manually distributing to a host, start the Chef Habitat Supervisor with your package:
The Chef Habitat Supervisor will install Chef InSpec and execute your profile in a loop. The loop is controlled by two variables: the `interval` and the `splay`. The `interval` is a set time you want InSpec to run and its default is `1800` seconds. The `splay` is a randomly generated sleep time that prevents a thundering herd problem, or resource starvation scenario, when sending your report to an external server like Chef Automate. The default for the `splay` is also `1800` seconds. Alternatively, the `splay_first_run` can be set to wait a random period of time between 0 and the number set for the `splay_first_run` before running InSpec when your Habitat package is started or updated. The default of the `splay_first_run` is `0` seconds.
The above sample output shows the supervisor starting, downloading the necessary dependencies for the supervisor and the Chef InSpec profile, and then shows the supervisor running Chef InSpec successfully.
Chef InSpec will write a JSON file in the `${svc_var_path}/inspec_results` directory containing the results of the last Chef InSpec run. For example, for the `effortless/audit-baseline` package, the Chef InSpec results will be at:
Create a Chef Habitat package for a Chef InSpec profile. Chef InSpec will validate the profile, fetch and vendor any dependencies (if necessary), and build the Chef Habitat package with a dependency on the latest InSpec. The resulting package will be saved to the current working directory.
[2017-03-28T13:29:32-04:00] INFO: Creating a Habitat artifact for profile: /Users/aleff/profiles/frontend1
[2017-03-28T13:29:32-04:00] INFO: Checking to see if Habitat is installed...
[2017-03-28T13:29:32-04:00] INFO: Copying profile contents to the work directory...
[2017-03-28T13:29:32-04:00] INFO: Generating Habitat plan at /var/folders/v5/z54gb76j2rs3wrn65hmtyf1r0000gp/T/inspec-habitat-exporter20170328-4932-kg2ltd/habitat/plan.sh...
[2017-03-28T13:29:32-04:00] INFO: Generating a Habitat run hook at /var/folders/v5/z54gb76j2rs3wrn65hmtyf1r0000gp/T/inspec-habitat-exporter20170328-4932-kg2ltd/habitat/hooks/run...
This is the same process that is used by `inspec habitat profile create` - but this adds the generated Chef Habitat
directory and file to your system so that you can commit them to source control. If you commit these files to GitHub, you can connect that plan to the [Chef Habitat Builder Service](https://www.habitat.sh/docs/using-builder/).
Create and then upload a Chef Habitat package for a Chef InSpec profile. Like the `inspec habitat profile create` command, Chef InSpec will validate the profile, fetch and vendor any dependencies (if necessary), and build the Chef Habitat package with a dependency on the latest InSpec. However, instead of saving the package locally to the workstation, Chef InSpec will upload it to the depot defined in the `HAB_DEPOT` environment variable. If `HAB_DEPOT` is not defined, the package will be uploaded to the public Chef Habitat depot at [https://app.habitat.sh](https://app.habitat.sh).
[2017-03-28T13:29:32-04:00] INFO: Creating a Habitat artifact for profile: /Users/aleff/profiles/frontend1
[2017-03-28T13:29:32-04:00] INFO: Checking to see if Habitat is installed...
[2017-03-28T13:29:32-04:00] INFO: Copying profile contents to the work directory...
[2017-03-28T13:29:32-04:00] INFO: Generating Habitat plan at /var/folders/v5/z54gb76j2rs3wrn65hmtyf1r0000gp/T/inspec-habitat-exporter20170328-4932-kg2ltd/habitat/plan.sh...
[2017-03-28T13:29:32-04:00] INFO: Generating a Habitat run hook at /var/folders/v5/z54gb76j2rs3wrn65hmtyf1r0000gp/T/inspec-habitat-exporter20170328-4932-kg2ltd/habitat/hooks/run...
