[chef-dev] Saving a node with overridden run lists

[Thom May < >]

Hi,

At work we run chef as a cron job with something like "chef-client -o role[default]", where role[default] contains a bunch of baseline stuff, and the full run list does deployments and other things we want to treat more carefully.

Every so often we see nodes get their run_list reset to just "role[default]", and today it finally dawned on me why:

* chef run starts.

* If there's an overridden run_list, we stash the original ( https://github.com/opscode/chef/blob/master/lib/chef/client.rb#L306 ) 

* recipes can call node.save at any time. This save doesn't protect the run list

( https://github.com/opscode/chef/blob/master/lib/chef/node.rb#L482 )

* at the end, on success the original run list is put back and we save

( https://github.com/opscode/chef/blob/master/lib/chef/client.rb#L258 ) 

** but if we *don't* have a successful run, the node.saves that occur during the run will clobber the run list

It's potentially a little awkward to fix this without changing API too much. What I'm thinking is to stash the original_run_list onto the node_object, and then rearrange #save to put back the original run_list rather than #save_updated_node.

It means you won't be able to change the run list during a run where you're using an overridden run list, but that seems like a Bad Idea anyway.

Does this seem reasonable or have I missed something glaringly obvious?

Thanks,

-Thom