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Progress Chef Infra Client is the core agent that runs locally on every node managed by Progress Chef Infra Server. It continuously enforces your desired state by translating infrastructure into code, ensuring systems remain consistent, compliant and reliable at any scale.
With Chef Infra Client 19, we are delivering one of our most impactful releases yet. This version modernizes the foundation of Infra Client, improves installation and upgrade workflows, enhances security and introduces powerful capabilities.
Why Infra Client 19?
As Chef Infra adoption has grown, teams have consistently asked for improvements that reduce friction, especially packaging, upgrades, OS-specific behaviors and managing different client versions during transitions. Chef Infra Client 19 directly addresses these needs. This release focuses on:
- Smoother installation and migration
- More secure and modern underlying technologies
- Improved cross-platform consistency
- A clearer long-term support path
- Greater flexibility to test and adopt new versions safely
Infra Client 19 is also the new Long-Term Support (LTS) release, making it the recommended version for customers planning for long-term stability.Infra Client 19 introduces several enhancements that strengthen daily operations and set the stage for future improvements.
A More Modern Installation and Packaging Experience
Previous versions of Chef used an inflexible, monolithic packaging system known as Omnibus, making it difficult to run multiple versions in parallel and making new OS support challenging.
Chef Infra 19 overcomes these challenges using Chef Habitat technology, providing a better experience. Customers have the flexibility of leveraging the power of the Habitat package manager directly or the convenience of installing OS-native packages.
Native installers available in the release will include:
- Windows x86_64: .msi
- Linux x86_64: .rpm, .deb
Support for additional operating systems and processor architectures will follow in later releases.
Migration Tools for an Easier Transition
Some customers will need to upgrade Chef in place; others will perform fresh installs. For those upgrading in-place, Infra Client 19 introduces a new migration tool to make the switch from Omnibus-based packaging to Habitat-based packaging seamless. The tool enables:
- Safe upgrades from previous versions
- Automatic execution of the migration tool when using native installers
- Side-by-side installations for testing and validation
- Non-disruptive transitions between packaging formats
This enables teams to adopt Infra Client 19 confidently without risk to existing workflows.
Stronger Security Foundation
This release includes significant security improvements driven by ongoing threat modelling efforts. Updates include:
- OpenSSL 3.5.4 library
- Hardened libraries and dependency updates
- Vulnerability fixes across multiple components
Key Features At a Glance
Infra Client 19 includes a wide range of enhancements across functionality, reliability, and performance:
- Full support for Ruby 3.4.8
- Target Mode enhancements (SSH-only nodes, sudo support, multiple targets, Vault support)
- Modularized Chef InSpec resource packs
- Test Kitchen Enterprise integration for cookbook and profile testing
- Standardized licensing across Chef Infra Client and Test Kitchen Enterprise
- Numerous improvements, bug fixes and security updates across core components, resources, and packaging
What Should You Be Aware Of?
Infra Client 19 introduces changes to packaging, dependencies and installation behaviour. Existing cookbooks and workflows remain compatible, but teams may notice differences compared to Omnibus-based versions.
We recommend using the migration tool for the smoothest upgrade experience, especially in large or mixed-version environments.
What’s Coming Next?
Future updates will expand platform support, bring additional security enhancements, and continue refining the Habitat-based packaging experience.
The Chef Workstation release that supports Infra Client 19 and Workstation 26 will be released in a few weeks, following the release of the Infra Client. Look forward to the release of Workstation 26 to try out these features:
- knife bootstrap with Chef Infra 19
- Chef Test Kitchen Enterprise with Chef Infra Client 19
More guidance, documentation and tooling improvements will be shared as the release evolves.
How Can You Get Started?
Chef Infra Client 19 is available now. Teams can begin installing, testing and exploring its capabilities right away.
Installation steps, migration guidance and reference documentation are available in the official Chef Infra Client 19 documentation.