[[chef-dev]] CHEF-1621 - "recursive" attribute on "directory" resource does not apply users and groups to entire path

[Thomas Bishop < >]

Hi folks,

I was discussing this ticket with Dan DeLeo on irc and we thought it
would be a good idea to get feedback from a larger audience.

Have a look at the example at http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-1621.

The user was expecting:

777 ldm:ldm /data
777 ldm:ldm /data/realtime
777 ldm:ldm /data/realtime/fetched
777 ldm:ldm /data/realtime/fetched/radar


Here's what chef did:

755 root:root /data
755 root:root /data/realtime
755 root:root /data/realtime/fetched
777 ldm:ldm /data/realtime/fetched/radar


The current chef behavior makes sense to me.  Here are a couple of reasons 
why:

1.  As the directory being defined is /data/realtime/fetched/radar, I
would not expect chef to touch the ownership or permissions on
anything above it.  I would however expect chef to create the required
parent directories if they did not exist in order to satisfy the
desired state.

2.  If chef modified the permissions/ownership for the entire
structure, this could have adverse effects if there were additional
directories defined under /data, or /data/realtime or
/data/realtime/fetched.  If /data/foo existed for example.  In my
opinion, this would be counterintuitive behavior.


I agree with the ticket submitter that the docs aren't 100% clear on
this and should probably be updated.


I would love to hear additional thoughts on this.


-Tommy