[chef] Re: Re: A case for 'run once' recipes

[Ezra Zygmuntowicz < >]

On Sep 23, 2009, at 8:10 AM, Caleb Tennis wrote:

> > Spawning new clouds repaidly with chef is only one of its possible  
> > use cases, maintaining them is another. Chef would gain a lot of  
> > traction and support in the greater ISP arena if these 'run once'  
> > features are implemented.
>
> Are you looking for something more complicated than adding a not_if  
> into your current recipe sets?  I have a lot of "run once" recipes  
> in this fashion.
>
> Or, you can just put a big if() around the recipe blocks. The whole  
> thing is just interpreted ruby.
>
> Caleb

	I agree with Caleb, the whole point of chef is to make your recipes  
idempotent. For the run once recipes that I have needed you can have  
the resource touch a file called .alreadydone or something and add a  
not_if { File.exists?('.alreadydone')} to the resource to emulate run  
once recipes. Perhaps you could wrap up this functionality into the  
resources themselves with a little work to have certain resources do  
this automatcially for you?

Cheers-

Ezra Zygmuntowicz