[chef] Template resource: default value for mode attribute?

[Faiz Kazi < >]

It appears that if one does not specify a mode,
files generated/overwritten by template resources
end up having permissions like -rw------- (0600).

This seems like a sane default. But maybe the
documentation should make this explicit. 
Right now, the template resource wiki page
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Resources#Resources-Template
reads:

Attribute:      mode
Description:    "The octal mode of the file - 0755"
Default Value:  (nothing here)

Take for example the simple case of managing /etc/hosts.
This file usually has permissions -rw-r--r--.

template '/etc/hosts'
  source 'hosts.erb'
end

.. will overwrite /etc/hosts as expected, but if one
forgets to pass in the mode attribute, '/etc/hosts'
ends up as readable only by root (i.e., -rw-------).

This is not really a major problem (I simply make sure
to pass in a mode explicitly).
but as a suggestion:

(1) For existing files that get 'templated', 
chef-client could just leave the permissions untouched.

OR

(2) Fix the docs to make it very clear that unless
one specifies a mode explicitly, the file 
created/overwritten by the template will end up
with the default mode (and that the default 
mode is 0600, not 0755)


For the record, I'm still running 0.9.16.

Thanks,
Faiz