[chef] Re: File created from template has broken (binary) and incorrect data in it after Chef run

[AJ Christensen < >]

Please show full debug logs for the period and/or the contents of the
Chef File Backup Cache and/or logging statements regarding moving
files into the Backup Cache

This is pretty heavy stuff.. reminds me of a bug long ago, on a planet
far away in another configuration management universe.

Regards,

AJ

On 6 June 2012 02:13, Ian Marlier 
<
 >
 wrote:
> Hi, Chefs --
>
> After a Chef run on one of my machines last night, a text file on the
> system, created from a template, had binary data in it.  On the next Chef
> run, everything was fine.  I'm wondering if this is something that anyone
> else has experienced.  (This is also filed as
> http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-3179, but I wanted to cast a wide net
> since it's not an easily searchable issue.)
>
> Basic details:
> Chef 0.10.10, Ruby 1.9.2p180, Ohai 0.6.12
>
>
> Many more details: read on!
>
> I have a resource definition called "nrpe_service".  It's used to define
> services for NRPE (Nagios Remote Plugin framework).  In this case, it's
> defined like this:
> nrpe_service "check_couch_two_way_replication" do
>   command "check_couch_replication.py --database $ARG1$ --source --dest"
> end
>
> The definition does some sanity checking (making sure that needed attributes
> are defined, etc), then does this if the sanity check works out:
>         template "#{node[:nrpe][:confdir]}/#{params[:name]}.cfg" do
>             cookbook "nagios"
>             source "nrpe_service.cfg.erb"
>             owner "root"
>             group "root"
>             mode "0644"
>             variables({:params => params})
>         end
>
>
> So far, so good.
>
> The template itself is pretty simple (though, wow, what was I thinking when
> I put some of the modification logic in the template instead of the resource
> definiton?  That was silly...):
> <% if @params[:command][0] == '/' %>
> <% cmd = @params[:command] %>
> <% else %>
> <% cmd = 
> "
 :nagios][:plugin_path]}/
 :command]}"
>  %>
> <% end %>
> command[<%= @params[:name] -%>]=<%= cmd %>
>
>
> The resulting service definition looks like this:
> [imarlier nrpe.d]$ cat check_couch_two_way_replication.cfg
> command[check_couch_two_way_replication]=/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/check_couch_replication.py
> --database $ARG1$ --source --dest
> [imarlier nrpe.d]$
>
>
> This has been in place, and has been working just fine, for months now.
> Then last night, chef-client ran (a scheduled run) and the file turned into
> this:
> [imarlier nrpe.d]$ cat
> check_couch_two_way_replication.cfg.chef-20120604182416
> command[1?en
>             way_replication]=/usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/["uid", 10003]
> [imarlier nrpe.d]$
>
>
> This is...wrong.
>
> The next time that Chef ran, everything went back to how it should be.
> There were no alterations to the Chef server at this time, and no local
> modifications on the client either.
>
> It's interesting to me that the things that appear to be corrupted are
> parameter values that should be derived entirely locally -- they're elements
> of the resource definition, and not parameters that are being pulled down
> from the server or anything like that.
>
> Has anyone seen similar behavior?  Given that this isn't something that
> seems to happen with any frequency -- and it's not something that I can
> reproduce at will -- anyone have ideas as to what I might do to debug this?
> Are there any known data corruption bugs in Chef?  In Ruby?  I'm kind of at
> a loss, but seeing something like this is pretty terrifying.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Ian
>
>
> --
> Ian Marlier | Senior Systems Engineer
> Brightcove, Inc.
> 290 Congress Street, 4th Floor, Boston, MA 02110
> 
 
>