[chef] Managing package preferences within chef (Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, etc.)

[Edward Morbius < >]

We're looking for a lightweight way to specify package preferences
(inclusion and exclusion) on chef-managed hosts.

Ideally this would simply be a list of packages and desired
installation states.  Primary target is Ubuntu / Debian, so:

<packagename> <install|remove|purge>

... would be the general form.


I'm not seeing an obvious established way of doing this, but it seems
like the sort of thing that should exist.

What am I missing?

-- 
Dr. Ed Morbius
Chief Scientist / Philologist / Robot Wrangler / Powerplant Operator
Krell Power Systems Unlimited