Chef-client Log File Resource

Chef Infra (archive)
1

My end goal: log the chef-client runs to file (rather than just STDOUT).

I found the chef-client::config recipe and the default['chef_client']['cron']['log_file'] attribute. When I include the chef-client::config recipe in my test kitchen instance, test kitchen creates a /etc/chef/client.rb file different than what I currently have in my non-dev environments (which created the /etc/chef/client.rb file with the standard chef-client install but not from chef-client::config).

non-dev environment /etc/chef/client.rb file:

chef_server_url  "https://path/to/server"
validation_client_name "my-custom-name"
node_name "my-custom-node-name"
trusted_certs_dir "/etc/chef/trusted_certs"

dev environment /etc/chef/client.rb:

chef_server_url "chefzero://localhost:8889"
client_fork true
log_location "/var/log/chef/client.log"
validation_client_name "chef-validator"
verify_api_cert true
node_name "default-ubuntu-1404"

# Do no crash if a handler is missing / not installed yet
begin
  rescue NameError => e
  Chef::Log.error e
end

Dir.glob(File.join("/etc/chef", "client.d", "*.rb")).each do |conf|
  Chef::Config.from_file(conf)
end

My question: is there an easier way to add the log_location variable to my client.rb file than this recipe/attribute? I assume that if I choose to manage the log_location attribute via the chef-client::config recipe, I have to manage the other attributes via this recipe too (chef_server_url, validation_client_name, etc.) or they’ll be removed from my pre-existing client.rb files.

I’m running chef-client v 12.5.1.