[chef] Re: Search problem

[Seth Falcon < >]

Hi Tom,

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 1:11 PM, Tom Hughes 
<
 >
 wrote:
> I have a strange problem with duplicate attributes appearing on a node
> returned from a search when that is the node currently being processed.
>
> The setup is that I have an attribute which is an array of hashes and the
> basic details are defined in a role which gives the attribute a value which
> is an array of two hashes.
>
> There is then a recipe which adds extra details to the two hashes which are
> computed from the entries defined by the role so by the time the chef run
> finishes and the attributes are submitted back to the server the hashes are
> fully populated.
>
> Now if I do a search in a recipe and get a set of nodes back then I find
> that for most nodes in the result I have the fully populated hashes that I
> expect, but if the search result includes the node currently being processed
> the instead of two entries in the array there are four - two fully populated
> ones (presumably from the last run) and two partially populated ones which
> only have the values set by the role.
>
> This is true even if the recipe that fills in the extra values has already
> been run.
>
> I've looked at the chef source and as far as I can see all the data on a
> node returned by a search has come from the server, so I don't understand
> why I am seeing the partially populated hashes as I thought the new
> attributes weren't sent to the server until the end of the run?
>
> Any ideas what is going on, or how I can avoid getting these
> duplicates?

What versions of Chef Server and chef-client are in play here?  Prior
to Chef 0.10, the chef-client saved nodes at the beginning of a run.
The indexing is not instant, but it is possible that a search could
pick up this intermediate state.

+ seth

-- 
Seth Falcon | Senior Software Design Engineer | Opscode | @sfalcon