Can I change node run-list at run time?

Chef Infra (archive)
1

Ohai Chef

Can I change node run-list while chef-client is being executed?

Scenario:
Chef-client is being executed with this run-list: ‘recipe[master_cookbook]’, ‘recipe[download]’, ‘recipe[install]’, ‘recipe[configure]’. At the run time of chef-client, my master_cookbook have logic to execute specific cookbook. As a result of one test run, master_cookbook found out that I want to execute only ‘recipe[install]’. How can I forbid the execution of download and configure in that case?

Thanks

2

From the description, it sounds like you are treating recipes like scripts. Manipulating the runlist goes against the principles of desired state and doesn’t scale well. A better approach is to make the recipes idempotent. You can do this with guard interpreters, and ‘nothing’ action resources.

Here is an example. A new build is only downloaded if ‘build_number’ changes, or doesn’t exist in the destination. The install and configure are only executed if a new file has been downloaded.

Ideally you would store build_number in a databag, or a node attribute, make it querryable from an api opposed to hard coding in your cookbook.

build_number = 1234

remote_file "#{Chef::Config['file_cache_path']}/build#{build_number}.tgz" do
  source "https://foo.example.com/build#{build_number}.tgz"
  action :create
  notifies :run, 'execute[install]'
  notifies :run, 'execute[configure]'
end

directory '/opt/build' do
  action :create
end

execute 'install' do
  command "tar -xvf #{Chef::Config['file_cache_path']}/build#{build_number}.tgz -C /opt/build"
  action :nothing
end

execute 'configure' do
  command 'foo'
  action :nothing
end
3

If you want to change run_list(cookbooks) at run time, use chef-client -o cookbook_name