[chef] Re: Installing from OS Package vs Download

[Haselwanter Edmund < >]

On 13.04.2011, at 17:58, Edward Sargisson wrote:

Hi all,
I'm just starting out with Chef and I have a question about cookbook design.

I've noticed that some cookbooks use the OS packaging system to get what's required while other cookbooks download a binary file.
For example, the tomcat6 package

this happens if there is no "right" choice in the packaging system. at the time I've written the tomcat6 cookbook there was no up-to-date tomcat6 package available for centos.

will get the file from the apache website and install from there while the mysql cookbook will use the package resource.

What guidelines do people use to decide which one to do?

if the package which comes through the packaging system is what you want to have use this one

I personally prefer to use the packaging system and feel uncomfortable installing from a download unless there's something in that version I really need.

me too.

This means I can be confident that what I've installed will work with my system - because the package maintainer and the community have tested it pretty thoroughly and the package will install it according to the OS layout standards.

I'm using Ubuntu but I think my comments apply generally.

Thoughts?

In my case, I'm considering modifying the public tomcat6 cookbook to get what I need via packages.

there is another tomcat cookbook available. it is called tomcat and uses the tomcat package of ubuntu 

Thanks,
Edward

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DI Edmund Haselwanter, "> , http://edmund.haselwanter.com/

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