[chef] Re: Re: Re: Defining attributes for cookbook in recipe has different behavior than attributes from roles

[William Jimenez < >]

I'm trying to configure an exception handler to receive notification when a chef run fails. I'm using the opscode cookbook chef-client to define this exception handler in the client.rb file of each chef node. 

I expect when I call chef-client::config it to modify the client.rb to contain the following:

["chef/handler/mail"].each do |lib|
  begin
    require lib
  rescue LoadError
    Chef::Log.warn "Failed to load #{lib}. This should be resolved after a chef run."
  end
end 

exception_handlers << MailHandler.new()

and it does this just fine when I define the attributes in the role of a given node. But when I try to define the attributes in the recipe instead, it doesn't add the above changes to client.rb, only builds the file with the default settings. 

The role has this defined in it (under the default attributes):

    "chef_client": {
      "config": {
        "exception_handlers": [
          {
            "class": "MailHandler",
            "arguments": [
            ]
          }
        ]
      },
      "load_gems": {
        "chef-handler-mail": {
          "require_name": "chef/handler/mail"
        }
      }
    }

Thanks for your help with this,

William

 

On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 12:25 PM, Peter Burkholder < " target="_blank"> > wrote:

William,

You'll need to provide more detail about what's in your role, what you expect to see happen, what actually happens. Debug output would be good too (a Gist would be fine). Use markup in the Gist so we can see what's what more easily in the role, etc. 

Note, you misspell mail_handler as 'mail_hanlder', which may be a confounding factor.

Avoid using attribute arrays: https://coderanger.net/arrays-and-chef/

The force_override shouldn't be needed since the wrapper cookbook attributes/default.rb will load after the chef-client/attributes/default.rb file

Cheers,

Peter

On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 11:37 PM, William Jimenez < " target="_blank"> > wrote:

Hello

1. I'm using the opscode chef-client cookbook, and I am trying to define attributes for the cookbook from a wrapper recipe, however they don't seem to be honored. When I define them in a role the node is in, it works however (working meaning chef_client operates on the attributes). What is different about the two?
   

Here is my attributes file: 

exception_mail_template = "/opt/chef/mail_hanlder_template.erb"

default['chef-client']['config']['exception_handlers'] = [ 

  {"class" => "MailHandler", "arguments" => [{:template_path => "#{exception_mail_template}"}]

    }]

default['chef-client']['load_gems'] = [

  {"chef-handler-mail" => {"require_name" => "chef/handler/mail"}

  }]

and portion of my recipe where I call chef_client

# Exception handling for chef client runs

chef_gem "chef-handler-mail" do

   action :install

end

# Install exception handler email template

exception_mail_template = "/opt/chef/mail_hanlder_template.erb"

cookbook_file "#{exception_mail_template}" do 

  source "mail_handler.erb"

end

          

include_recipe "chef-client::config"

Thanks

Attribute Precedence is probably what's screwing you up: http://docs.getchef.com/attributes.html#attribute-precedence

Your default attribute in your attributes file would have the same precedence as the cookbook.  So order wins.  A role will win though.

--

William Jimenez

Systems Engineer, Operations
ItsOn, Inc.

650-241-8470 {us/pacific}