Supported platforms

Progress Chef software is supported on the operating systems (platforms) listed below. To see which versions of our software we currently support, see the supported versions page.

Support definitions

Refer to the following sections for definitions of the certification tiers, installer types, and agent and agentless modes.

Certification tiers

Validated and supported

These platforms are fully tested on every release. These platforms run through the complete Chef automated test suite in Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) prior to each release.

Supported (untested)

These platforms are fully supported, but not tested in our CI/CD pipelines. Chef supports these platforms and will address any reported bugs.

User-reported

These platforms are validated by users. Support is provided on a best-effort basis.

Installer types

Native

Chef is installed using the platform’s native package manager - (Microsoft Installer (MSI)) on Windows, Debian package (DEB) on Debian/Ubuntu, RPM Package Manager (RPM) on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)/SUSE, or PKG (macOS installer package).

Habitat

Chef is installed and run using Chef Habitat commands (hab pkg install) or by extracting a Habitat artifact (.hart or .tar.gz). Used for platforms where a native package isn’t available or where a self-contained runtime is preferred.

Agent and agentless modes

Agent-based mode

Agent-based mode includes all software that runs directly on the managed node:

• Chef Infra Client
• Chef InSpec
• Chef Habitat supervisor
• Chef 360 Platform skills running in agent mode, including Courier job execution and Node Management

Agentless mode

Agentless mode includes all software that manages a node remotely without an agent present on the node:

• Chef Infra Client agentless mode (formerly Target Mode)—connects using SSH (Linux) or WinRM/SSH (Windows)
• Chef InSpec (remote scanning)
• Chef 360 Courier agentless job execution

Chef software is supported on the operating systems (platforms) listed below. To check which versions of our software we currently support, refer to the Supported Versions page.

Platforms

The sections below list the platforms that Chef Software supports.

Chef Automate

Standalone

Chef Automate has the following operating system requirements:

• A Linux operating system with kernel version 3.2 or later
• systemd as the init system
• The useradd command-line utility for creating user accounts
• Either curl or wget for downloading installation assets

For more information, see the Chef Automate system requirements

Chef Automate HA

Additional requirements:

• On RHEL 8 and RHEL 9, SELinux must be configured in permissive mode.

For more information, see the Chef Automate HA system requirements.

Chef Habitat

• Chef Habitat 2.1
• Chef Habitat 2.0
• Chef Habitat 1.6

Chef Infra Client

• Chef Infra Client 19
• Chef Infra Client 18

Chef Infra Server

The following table lists the commercially supported platforms for Chef Infra Server:

Chef InSpec

• Chef InSpec 7.2
• Chef InSpec 7.1
• Chef InSpec 7.0
• Chef InSpec 6.8
• Chef InSpec 5.24
• Chef InSpec 5.23

Chef Workstation

• Chef Workstation 26.1
• Chef Workstation 26.0
• Chef Workstation 25.x

Platform end-of-life policy

Chef’s products on particular platforms and versions reach end-of-life on the same date as the vendor EOL milestone for that operating system. Because different vendors use different terminology, the following table clarifies when Chef products are end-of-life according to those vendors’ terms.

At Chef’s option, additional support may be provided to customers beyond the vendor end-of-life in the above table. As such, the following table indicates upcoming product end-of-life dates for particular platforms. On the Chef end-of-life date, Chef discontinues building software for that platform and version.