[chef] Snowflake attributes

[< >]

Hi everyone,

I am fairly experienced with Chef and always try to follow the rule to not
create 'snowflake' nodes and to put all attributes in a
role/environment/databag.

What if I want to setup more than one application server on the same machine?
My setup would be to create 2 chef nodes for the same machine and configure
them each separately, but I can't use the same role because of port 
collisions.

Some possible solutions,

 * Create X roles if we need X servers on a single machine
 * Don't put multiple servers on the same machine
 * Use node attributes
 * Have cookbook select free ports

The best solution to seems to be 'Don't put multiple servers on the same
machine', but while I want that for other reasons then this problem it is
outside my control.

'Create X roles if we need X servers on a single machine' and 'Use node
attributes' are both obviously bad but work. 

'Have cookbook select free ports', seems like it could have merit but could
complicate the deployment.

Any thoughts?