[chef] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Policyfiles and chef provision

[Daniel DeLeo < >]

On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 1:19 PM, Christine Draper wrote:
> Dan,
>  
> I didn't mean 'all nodes being used for testing need the same cookbook 
> versions'. I wanted to communicate:
> * A particular topology (dbserver + appserver) should have the same 
> cookbook versions

Are you using community cookbooks at all? Would it violate a policy if the 
dbserver and app server used different versions of a cookbook like apt or yum 
or build-essentials? Just want to be sure I’m understanding your constraints.
  
> * Different topologies may have different cookbook versions - depending on 
> what the tester is working on
>  
> That's actually part of why I'm interested in policyfiles - trying to 
> achieve this with environments would be painful.
>  
> The mechanics of the process sounds plausibly workable. However, I thought 
> policyfiles set the runlist and attributes on the node as well as 
> constraining cookbooks, so wouldn't that conflict with setting the runlist 
> and attributes in the provisioning recipe?
Node-specific attributes are not affected by policyfiles, they work the same 
as they have. Policyfiles allow you to set attributes in the same way as 
roles (defaults and overrides, which have the same precedence as role 
attributes). You can pick and choose between setting the attributes on the 
node via provisioning and default and override attributes in the policyfile 
as you like.

When you enable policyfile mode on a chef-client, it will wipe the run list 
from the node and replace it with the one from the policyfile. Whatever you 
set in Chef Provisioning would be silently ignored.
  
>  
> Regards,
> Christine


HTH,

--  
Daniel DeLeo