[chef] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: About Opscode's cookbook repo changes

[Miquel Torres < >]

Hi Adam,

thanks for the detailed answer. It seems then that the way to go is to
use http://community.opscode.com/cookbooks/
either manually downloads or through a client that interfaces with the REST 
API.

I guess we are just used to cloning a Github repo, because it is so
convenient. But that will do.

That does not change the fact that patching knife so that it doesn't
require a Server for "local" operations is still a good idea. Cookbook
developers that don't use a Chef Server may still want to generate the
metadata.json for their own cookbooks (and .json for roles).

Miquel


2011/6/18 Hedge Hog 
<
 >:
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 3:54 AM, Miquel Torres 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
>> there are no conflicts, and certainly can be done. It just has many
>> dependencies for what in LittleChef's case would be a small use case
>> (translating ruby to JSON, basically).
>>
>> Anyway, like you said the solution would be to patch knife so that it
>> doesn't require a server for tasks like "cookbook metadata". I hope
>> someone wants to implement that! (hint, hint :)
>>
>> Independently of the need for that knife change, another solution
>> would be to reintroduce the metadata.json files in the repo, or to
>> create a "json" branch, which is always in sync with master but
>> includes the metadata.json files. That can even be automatically done
>> with some git commit hooks.
>
> The github.com/cookbooks account tracks the opscode repo and will
> likely start tracking other cookbooks as soon a jnewland id happy with
> some changes I made to the cookbooks-bot.
> When we update the cookbook we do generate the json file - using full
> chef.  This works for us at the moment.
>
> jnewland was setting up a server to make the updates run daily - I
> haven't tracked that over the last week or so, but he is on irc if you
> want to enquire about when the update is scheduled to run.
>
> HTH?
>
>>
>> Thanks for the answer,
>> Miquel
>>
>>
>> 2011/6/17 Daniel DeLeo 
>> <
 >:
>>>
>>> On Friday, June 17, 2011 at 9:34 AM, Miquel Torres wrote:
>>>
>>>> That would be a possible solution. It is not a good one, because you
>>>> need to install the whole chef package plus dependencies to use knife,
>>>> and you even get a chef-client running, which you definitely don't
>>>> want in your desktop.
>>>>
>>>> Isn't it possible to for example use a rake task, and only need to
>>>> install a chef "light" package or something?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Mostly not. Whether or not a given packaging system starts a chef-client 
>>> daemon is a packaging issue. I'll defer to the apt experts for 
>>> instructions on how to do this on Ubuntu, but the rubygems packages, for 
>>> example, do not start chef-client.
>>>
>>> Could you explain more about what issues are caused by installing the 
>>> "whole chef package plus dependencies"? Are there conflicts with other 
>>> packages?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dan DeLeo
>>>>
>>>> 2011/6/17 Daniel DeLeo 
>>>> <
 
>>>>  
>>>> (mailto:
 )>:
>>>> >
>>>> > On Friday, June 17, 2011 at 2:10 AM, Miquel Torres wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > > Hi all,
>>>> > >
>>>> > > last month there was a post regarding changes in the opscode 
>>>> > > cookbooks repo:
>>>> > > http://www.opscode.com/blog/2011/05/24/update-on-the-future-of-opscodes-cookbooks/
>>>> > >
>>>> > > While I can understand the reasons that made Opscode remove the
>>>> > > metadata.json from all cookbooks, it does pose a big problem for
>>>> > > non-ruby tools like LittleChef, which depended on JSON to
>>>> > > inter-operate.
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Is there a way to generate metadata.json for all cookbooks that
>>>> > > doesn't need a Chef Server?
>>>> > > "knife cookbook metadata" doesn't classify there, unfortunately.
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Cheers,
>>>> > > Miquel
>>>> > knife cookbook metadata doesn't need to talk to the server to work, 
>>>> > but the config checker will error out if you don't have a key. So the 
>>>> > best solution is to patch knife so that the config checker only cares 
>>>> > about your private key when running a command that requires it.
>>>> >
>>>> > --
>>>> > Dan DeLeo
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> πόλλ' οἶδ ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα
> [The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.]
>   Archilochus, Greek poet (c. 680 BC – c. 645 BC)
> http://hedgehogshiatus.com
>