[chef] Re: Re: Re: Re: What is the cookbook development workflow in your team?

[Peter Norton < >]

I'm interested in using chef+gerrit+jenkins to test new cookbooks in
our environment.  I'm thinking of a workflow like this:

git checkin of a cookbook.

The cookbook will have an associated unit test suite that jenkins will
run by deploying to a VM (probably an amazon EC2 t1.micro unless a
particular architecture is needed).  The cookbook will be run and if
it checks out, the version will be recorded as a candidate to become
elevated to the next environment.  I'm thinking of:

sandbox (least reliable)
dev (someone's at least looking at it, may get incorporated in
integration tests)
staging (will be used for pre-producting integration testing)
production (the real thing)

My only question is how to inject version numbers into the metadata in
a sane manner.  I can create/manipulate metadata.rb, but I can't see
an easy and clean way to put basic assurances with the X.Y.Z
versioning.

The closest I've gotten is something like this:

checkin foo with metadata.rb's version == 0.1.1.  All X.Y.Z releases
where (X%2 == false) are submitted by the dev/user, so can never be
part of dev, staging, or production.

When it's committed and pushed to the git/gerrit server a jenkins job
is kicked off which uploads the new cookbook and launches a server
with this cookbook version explicitly in the run list to verify that
the job passes.  If it passes, then the jenkins server increments the
metadata so that version = 0.2.1 (matching Z values) and commits that
to a branch that doesn't require review.  That branch then gets
uploaded to the chef server again, but now with the new version
number.

When moving from unit test to integration tests (e.g. with
cluster_chef/metachef, doing an entire environment or facet build)
then the Y value will get incremented to 3, 4, or 5 as testing
proceeds.

The thing I'm trying to solve is being able to use the same chef
account for the life of the cookbook so that version X.Y.Z will always
be the same if called in any environment.  The issue I'm having is
that fencing off particular minor (Y) revision numbers seems to invite
mis-understandings and casual mistakes.

Has anyone else dealt with this issue, or does anyone have a more
enlightened way of looking at the problem?

-Peter

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 2:15 PM, James Litton 
<
 >
 wrote:
> The git repo clone on the host is not necessary. It could certainly be
> done from a dev box or build server. Doing that from a build server
> would make a lot of sense, actually. The reason has just been a matter
> of convenience. We don't have to run multi-knife or a similar system
> because dev boxes always push to dev, test to test and so on. This
> also prevents an accidental push to prod in the case that someone
> forgets to branch after push, etc.
>
> versioning of cookbooks has been entirely haphazard(at best) with no
> ill effects so far, but this approach has only been in place a month
> or so. none of our cookbook depends specify version numbers. The
> biggest problem with this approach has been that it makes it more
> difficult to commit back to public cookbooks.
>
> No, that situation has not come up. If it were to come up, we would
> roll back to that point in the git repository not just the cookbook.
>
> James
>
> On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 1:12 AM, Torben Knerr 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
>> Hi James,
>>
>> thanks for sharing! Interesting to see the different approaches you can go
>> for.
>>
>> Few questions about your approach:
>>
>> 1) as you describe you have a git repo clone of your chef repository on 
>> each
>> of your chef servers, then check out locally on the chef server and then
>> knife upload to localhost if i understood correctly. Why do you need a git
>> repo clone of your chef repository on the chef server? Wouldn't it be 
>> enough
>> to knife upload from an external box (e.g. developer's box, build server) 
>> to
>> either of your chef servers?
>>
>> 2) as far as i understand your cookbook dependencies are versionless during
>> delevopment/upload/test/fix cycles and you always release the whole chef
>> repo instead of single cookbooks. As soon as you do a release, does the
>> script you mention update the Version number of all your cookbooks? Does it
>> at this point in time also add this version number to the cookbook depends
>> statements (and remove it afterwards for the next dev/upload/test/fix
>> cycle)?
>>
>> 3) do you ever have the situation that you need to set up a node with an
>> older cookbook version (e.g. for regression testing)?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Torben
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 4:24 AM, James Litton 
>> <
 >
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Torben,
>>>
>>>  Thank you for bringing this up. I have also been puzzling about this
>>> recently.
>>>
>>> Right now the process that I am using involves 3 chef servers.
>>>
>>> Development:
>>> - Branch git
>>> - Test/Deploy on Chef Solo (dedicated dev box with separate role in
>>> prod chef server)
>>>
>>> Test:
>>> - Checkout branch on test chef server
>>> - Push entire configuration (via shell script that I wrote)
>>> - Force a chef-client run on a hosts in test by environment (Load
>>> Test, staging, preview)
>>> - Complete testing
>>>
>>> Code Review
>>> - Review the changes in the branch as well as the test cases
>>>
>>> Prod (hosts developer environment and production hosts):
>>> - Merge branch to master
>>> - git pull on prod
>>> - Push config via script
>>> - Force chef-client run here only if required due to external requirement
>>>
>>> The only issue really is the Test Chef server sharing, but testing can
>>> generally be done quickly by maintaining smaller updates.
>>>
>>> cookbook versions number changes aren't as important due to re-upload
>>> of the cookbook with each push and splitting environments across chef
>>> servers
>>>
>>> The release process is not currently automated other than the script
>>> that updates all roles, environments, data bags and cookbooks with
>>> each release.
>>>
>>> Generally the entire chef repository is treated as a version/release
>>> in order to avoid version dependencies within each cycle.
>>>
>>> I'd also love to hear what other people are doing.
>>>
>>> James
>>> PagerDuty
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 11:58 AM, Torben Knerr 
>>> <
 >
>>>  wrote:
>>> > Hi everybody,
>>> >
>>> > Happy New Year! :-)
>>> >
>>> > This is my first post to this mailing list. I'm trying to implement a
>>> > proper
>>> > workflow for developing cookbooks within a small team. Coming from a
>>> > slightly different background (Java, Maven and the like) I'm looking for
>>> > some experience on how to implement a typical develop/test/release cycle
>>> > in
>>> > a Chef environment.
>>> >
>>> > So, assuming you are developing cookbooks in a team, how would you go
>>> > for
>>> > adding a new feature to a cookbook:
>>> >
>>> >  (a) develop -> test (using Vagrant/Chef Solo) -> repeat
>>> > develop/fix/test
>>> > cycle until done -> upload to team's chef server
>>> >  (b) develop -> test (upload to a private chef server) -> repeat
>>> > develop/fix/test cycle until done -> upload to team's chef server
>>> >  (c) develop -> test (upload directly to team's chef server) -> repeat
>>> > develop/fix/test cycle until done
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > I'm especially interested in:
>>> >
>>> >  1) at which point in time do you share your sources (git push)?
>>> >     - are you working on feature branches, then merge + push when done?
>>> >     - when do you increase the cookbook version? in the commit where you
>>> > merge back to master?
>>> >     - when do you create the tag? everytime you commit something on
>>> > master?
>>> >
>>> >  2) at which point in time do you upload the cookbook to the team's chef
>>> > server (knife upload)?
>>> >     - whenever you want to test something?
>>> >     - strictly only after creating a tag (i.e. releases only)?
>>> >     - do you always freeze uploaded cookbooks?
>>> >     - do you allow to overwrite cookbooks at all?
>>> >
>>> >  3) how do you handle releases?
>>> >     - is every upload to the chef repository automatically a (public?)
>>> > release for you?
>>> >     - do you have the release process (roughly: "run tests -> create tag
>>> > ->
>>> > upload cookbook") automated?
>>> >     - how do you handle cookbook dependencies when you release? do you
>>> > allow
>>> > for versionless cookbook depends?
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Eager to hear your experiences. Any help is appreciated!
>>> >
>>> > Cheers,
>>> > Torben
>>
>>