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

[Seth Falcon < >]

On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 10:08 PM, Thomas Bishop 
<
 >
 wrote:
> I'm wondering if that may cause confusion of when to use directory vs.
> directory_tree.

Yes, that's a downside.  I'm not 100% sold on the idea of creating a
new resource.  I have a feeling that any enhancement is going to add
complexity and the possibility of confusion.

We can manage a tree of directories in fairly short order today using
just a bit of surrounding Ruby:

  top_dir = "/data/realtime"
  ["", "fetched", "fetched/radar"].each do d
    Directory "#{top_dir}/#{d}"
       # stuff
    end
  end

So any enhancement should feel easier and less confusing than that.

> 'recurse_down_from' makes sense to me for defining the starting point.
>  It does however lead me to believe that it would equate to running
> chmod/chown -R from that point.

I guess I can see where you are coming from in terms of the chown -R,
but am surprised that you would want to set permissions on files in a
directory tree based on the permissions you want on the directory;
directories generally need to be +x but that is not generally what you
want for all the files.

And chmod/chown -R is hard.  To implement this you either have to check
permissions on every file contained in a directory tree or just go
ahead and perform the operation on each run.  Either way is going to
be expensive in terms of time for large and deep directory trees.
While I can see how one might think of a Directory resource managining
the files within a tree, I prefer the simplicity of the current
setup: the Directory resource just manages the directory itself; think
mkdir, not magicdir.

>  Perhaps adding another setting
> (recurse_all_subcontent/children/entries?
> include_subcontent/children/entries? other?) to denote that everything
> in the tree will be set?

If this is the desired behavior, perhaps this is best handled with an
explicit execute resource doing the "chown -R".


+ seth