[chef] Re: How to enhance an existing provider?

[Sean OMeara < >]

Hi!

Excellent question. The best way to do this is to use a cookbook to
monkey patch the Chef::Provider::File class, so you can experiment
with it without having to modify core Chef.

As it turns out, I started making a pass at this very issue a few
years ago, but never got around to finishing it.

Here's a good place to start!

https://github.com/someara/cookbook-selinux/tree/monkeys

Let me know if you have any questions or need any assistance.

-s

On Tue, Jan 1, 2013 at 5:26 PM,  
<
 >
 wrote:
> I’m still on the up-slope of my Chef learning curve…
>
>
>
> What I’d like to do is enhance the Chef::Provider::File. It seems to me that
> the documentation section “Extending an existing provider” would apply here,
> but I don’t fully understand how it would work. I would create a mixin and
> put it into the library directory – and then what?  How would all my
> cookbooks – and the community ones I’m using - know to use this mixin?
>
>
>
>
>
> Specifically, what I’m trying to accomplish is fix one of the major
> annoyances in Chef; it not only doesn’t support SELinux, but actively
> clobbers the SELinux context for all he files, templates etc. that it
> creates. So my recipes are littered with execute resources for the
> “restorecon” utility to reset this everwhere I use a file-related resource
> (templates, remote_file, cookbook file etc.). It is becoming unmanageable,
> especially with community cookbooks that of course don’t have my hack added.
>
>
>
> Conceptually the fix is simple: in the file provider, in addition to setting
> the file permissions, I would also need to call restorecon.
>
>
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> Rather than hacking the File resource itself, I would like to put this
> feature into my SELinux cookbook, and have that somehow add a Mixin to the
> File resource.
>
>
>
> I just can’t figure out how to do that.
>
>
>
> Thanks!
>
>