[chef] Chef bash resource not executing as specified user

[Arthur Kalmenson < >]

I'm writing a Chef cookbook to install Hubot. In the recipe, I do the following:

bash "install hubot" do

  user hubot_user

  group hubot_group

  cwd install_dir

  code <<-EOH

    wget https://github.com/downloads/github/hubot/hubot-#{node['hubot']['version']}.tar.gz && \

    tar xzvf hubot-#{node['hubot']['version']}.tar.gz && \

    cd hubot && \

    npm install

  EOH

end

However, when I try to run chef-client on the server installing the cookbook, I'm getting a permission denied writing to the directory of the user that runs chef-client, not the hubot user. For some reason, npm is trying to run under the wrong user, not the user specified in the bash resource.

I am able to run sudo su - hubot -c "npm install /usr/local/hubot/hubot" manually, and this gets the result I want (installs hubot as the hubot user). However, it seems chef-client isn't executing the command as the hubot user. Below you'll find the chef-client execution. Thank you in advance.

Saving to: `hubot-2.1.0.tar.gz'

     0K ......                                                100%  563K=0.01s

2012-01-23 12:32:55 (563 KB/s) - `hubot-2.1.0.tar.gz' saved [7115/7115]

npm ERR! Could not create /home/<chef-client-user>/.npm/log/1.2.0/package.tgz

npm ERR! Failed creating the tarball.

npm ERR! couldn't pack /tmp/npm-1327339976597/1327339976597-0.13104878342710435/contents/package to /home/<chef-client-user>/.npm/log/1.2.0/package.tgz

npm ERR! error installing Error: EACCES, permission denied '/home/<chef-client-user>/.npm/log'

...

npm not ok

---- End output of "bash"  "/tmp/chef-script20120123-25024-u9nps2-0" ----

Ran "bash"  "/tmp/chef-script20120123-25024-u9nps2-0" returned 1

--

Arthur Kalmenson