[chef] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reporting: list of nodes with cookbook versions

[Ranjib Dey < >]

@lamont if you have an initial spec in mind let us know :-) . We can introduce a chef computed attribute like `recipes` or `roles` as part of the run list expansion (may be `cookbooks`). 

On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 12:34 PM, Lamont Granquist < " target="_blank"> > wrote:

The status information per-cookbook doesn't make sense with chef's model since if any ruby code fails at compile time or a resource fails at run time it'll fail the entire run.  That's better done with a chef handler that reports the exception.  The reporting premium feature does this, but its not very difficult to recreate and I believe there's examples out there of doing it yourself.

The cookbook versions don't currently get serialized to node data, that's another thing that would be relatively easy to do.  Getting it into core chef is starting to get near to the top of my list of things I'd like to address now that we're post-12.0.0 release, but I haven't found the time yet.

On 2/7/15 10:37 AM, Roman Naumenko wrote:

Lets step back to my initial question. Chef is to enforce policy and keep nodes in defined state.
Is there a way to get information about node's state, specifically version cookbooks?

And if there is chef reporting premium feature exists, can it generelate a list like this?

cookbook     version     node        status

cb1               1.2.4          linux1      clean

cb1               1.2.4          linux5      failed

cb_base       1.0.1          linux2      failed

Thanks,
--Roman

Tensibai Zhaoying wrote on 07-02-15 13:21:

My opinion: No, it's not its role to store it. Core server's role is to give nodes their described configuration. The last run time is stored in the node attributes natively.

The versions are resolved when the client ask them, we can't rely on this as the version locks may have changed since a node last run.

For the resources. (health) , would you store only the changed one on last run ? Or just the number of updated resources ? Or last time this specific resource was updated ?

Storing all that in the node attributes just make the node object grow and take more time to be retrieved on each run.
It's better to keep that in a separate space (still my personal opinion) .

And after a while you'll want an history of thoosemail informations , that's why a separate part called reporting exist as an add-on, not everyone have the same expectations, and I really think core Chef-server should stick giving configuration pieces and not start being the repository of node states over time.

Le 7 févr. 2015 00:45, Roman Naumenko " target="_blank">< > a écrit :

To Tensibai point: isn't it what chef server supposed to do?

Ranjib, that's probably the way to do it, but again - why that's missing in core functionality? Also, it's version reports are useful only in relation to other information: health status, last run time etc. Is all this information goes to tags as well?

--Roman

Ranjib Dey wrote on 04-02-15 3:29:

that example can be extend to save the cookbook version info as a node attribute. and a custom knife plugin can show you the data any way you want.

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 12:08 AM, Tensibai < " target="_blank"> > wrote:

I know no direct access from chef server to this, the way we do use is a report handler to populate a DB and then have an interface giving run details with cookbook versions.

There's an exemple ont he doc here: http://docs.chef.io/handlers.html#cookbook-versions

I did adapt an old dashboard named Cuisine (but we don't use it anymore), it's unclean code and I've not done a correct installation cookbook.  I may update it on github if you wish to have a look at it and at it's corresponding handler.

 

Le 2015-02-03 17:03, Roman Naumenko a écrit :

Hi,

Does chef server has capabilities to generate report of environment status? Was surprised to see it's not so easy to generate.

I'm looking to get things like list of nodes with the particular cookbook versions, for example:

cookbook     version     node        status

cb1                1.2.4          linux1      clean

cb1                1.2.4          linux5      failed

cb_base       1.0.1          linux2      failed

cb_base       1.0.1          linux4     clean

cb_base       1.0.2          linux5     clean

cb_base       1.0.2          linux6     clean

and so on

It has to be generated in shell since the web-interface is pretty much useless.

I looked at few plugins like lastrun, knife-audit but none is working with versions.

Thanks,

--Roman