Chef-client slow on Windows

Hi,

We’ve had a couple of other threads last year around this . Now that I am
working with a bigger team with chef on windows, one constant complaint has
been the slowness of running chef-client . It takes around 20seconds to
show “Chef client run started” ( the starting line ) and then another
10-15 seconds where the plugins are loaded and the recipes are cached and
then the actual client run happens. Based on the other threads ,we’ve
disabled a whole bunch of plugins but we’re facing this issue. Running
knife commands are also very slow. We’re on Windows 2008 server or Windows
7 machines.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Ranjan

Which version are you using? There was an issue with a recent release that used a version of rubygems that caused extremely long initial load times like what you're seeing.

On Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 1:26 PM, Madhurranjan Mohaan wrote:

Hi,

We've had a couple of other threads last year around this . Now that I am working with a bigger team with chef on windows, one constant complaint has been the slowness of running chef-client . It takes around 20seconds to show "Chef client run started" ( the starting line ) and then another 10-15 seconds where the plugins are loaded and the recipes are cached and then the actual client run happens. Based on the other threads ,we've disabled a whole bunch of plugins but we're facing this issue. Running knife commands are also very slow. We're on Windows 2008 server or Windows 7 machines.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Ranjan

Hi Daniel,

We are using 10.12.0 client and server versions.

Ranjan

On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 11:01 PM, Daniel Condomitti
daniel@condomitti.comwrote:

Which version are you using? There was an issue with a recent release
that used a version of rubygems that caused extremely long initial load
times like what you're seeing.

On Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 1:26 PM, Madhurranjan Mohaan wrote:

Hi,

We've had a couple of other threads last year around this . Now that I am
working with a bigger team with chef on windows, one constant complaint has
been the slowness of running chef-client . It takes around 20seconds to
show "Chef client run started" ( the starting line ) and then another
10-15 seconds where the plugins are loaded and the recipes are cached and
then the actual client run happens. Based on the other threads ,we've
disabled a whole bunch of plugins but we're facing this issue. Running
knife commands are also very slow. We're on Windows 2008 server or Windows
7 machines.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Ranjan

The other bit is that Ohai windows kernel by sbates · Pull Request #81 · chef/ohai · GitHub is not
included in 10.12 . I see that it was merged in the mainline 3 months ago.
Just curious whether this is in 10.14 and if it improves the issue, we can
upgrade.

On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Madhurranjan Mohaan <
maadhuuranjan.m@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Daniel,

We are using 10.12.0 client and server versions.

Ranjan

On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 11:01 PM, Daniel Condomitti <daniel@condomitti.com

wrote:

Which version are you using? There was an issue with a recent release
that used a version of rubygems that caused extremely long initial load
times like what you're seeing.

On Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 1:26 PM, Madhurranjan Mohaan wrote:

Hi,

We've had a couple of other threads last year around this . Now that I am
working with a bigger team with chef on windows, one constant complaint has
been the slowness of running chef-client . It takes around 20seconds to
show "Chef client run started" ( the starting line ) and then another
10-15 seconds where the plugins are loaded and the recipes are cached and
then the actual client run happens. Based on the other threads ,we've
disabled a whole bunch of plugins but we're facing this issue. Running
knife commands are also very slow. We're on Windows 2008 server or Windows
7 machines.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Ranjan

10.12 was the slow version Daniel mentioned earlier so upgrading to 10.14
should fix the speed issue for you. At least it did for me with my Linux
servers.

Unfortunately 10.14.2 is also affected.

Please see my ticket:

http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-3485

I can confirm that 10.14.4 is still impacted

From: "bjunity@gmail.commailto:bjunity@gmail.com" <bjunity@gmail.commailto:bjunity@gmail.com>
Reply-To: "chef@lists.opscode.commailto:chef@lists.opscode.com" <chef@lists.opscode.commailto:chef@lists.opscode.com>
Date: Friday, October 19, 2012 7:17 AM
To: "chef@lists.opscode.commailto:chef@lists.opscode.com" <chef@lists.opscode.commailto:chef@lists.opscode.com>
Subject: [chef] Re: Re: Re: Chef-client slow on Windows

Unfortunately 10.14.2 is also affected.

Please see my ticket:

http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-3485

Can we , the windows users, ( unfortunately I guess we don't have a
choice!) request for some help on the platform ? The 100% CPU thing is
interesting as I just noticed the same on Win 2008 . Thanks for pointing
that out. We are going live in Production in a month's time and I am afraid
all the work we have done might be rejected by the Ops folks of the
customer due to these reasons.

Ranjan

On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 1:47 AM, Tim Smith Tim.Smith@webtrends.com wrote:

I can confirm that 10.14.4 is still impacted

From: "bjunity@gmail.com" bjunity@gmail.com
Reply-To: "chef@lists.opscode.com" chef@lists.opscode.com
Date: Friday, October 19, 2012 7:17 AM
To: "chef@lists.opscode.com" chef@lists.opscode.com

Subject: [chef] Re: Re: Re: Chef-client slow on Windows

Unfortunately 10.14.2 is also affected.

Please see my ticket:

http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-3485

I noticed knife hanging for one of my
windows devs the other day too. I haven't had a chance to follow
up on it and I don't currently have a way to easily debug it. I'm
pretty sure he's running the latest available version as he just
started working with chef last week.

Sascha Bates
| sascha.bates@gmail.com | 612 850 0444 | sascha.bates@skype |
sascha_bates@yahoo |
On 10/20/12 1:48 PM, Madhurranjan Mohaan wrote:

Can we , the windows users, ( unfortunately I guess we don't have a choice!) request for some help on the platform ? The 100% CPU thing is interesting as I just noticed the same on Win 2008 . Thanks for pointing that out. We are going live in Production in a month's time and I am afraid all the work we have done might be rejected by the Ops folks of the customer due to these reasons.

Ranjan

On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 1:47 AM, Tim
Smith <Tim.Smith@webtrends.com>
wrote:

I can confirm that 10.14.4 is still impacted

From: "bjunity@gmail.com"
<bjunity@gmail.com>

Reply-To: "chef@lists.opscode.com"
<chef@lists.opscode.com>

Date: Friday,
October 19, 2012 7:17 AM

To: "chef@lists.opscode.com"
<chef@lists.opscode.com>

Subject: [chef]
Re: Re: Re: Chef-client slow on Windows

                  Unfortunately 10.14.2 is also affected.




                  Please see my ticket:

http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-3485

Yes, this is something I've asked the team to prioritize. We'll be taking a close look at Windows support in general between now and the end of the year.

Chris


Christopher Brown
Chief Technology Officer,
Opscode, Inc.


Twitter: @skeptomai

From: Madhurranjan Mohaan [maadhuuranjan.m@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2012 11:48 AM
To: chef@lists.opscode.com
Subject: [chef] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Chef-client slow on Windows

Can we , the windows users, ( unfortunately I guess we don't have a choice!) request for some help on the platform ? The 100% CPU thing is interesting as I just noticed the same on Win 2008 . Thanks for pointing that out. We are going live in Production in a month's time and I am afraid all the work we have done might be rejected by the Ops folks of the customer due to these reasons.

Ranjan

On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 1:47 AM, Tim Smith <Tim.Smith@webtrends.commailto:Tim.Smith@webtrends.com> wrote:
I can confirm that 10.14.4 is still impacted

From: "bjunity@gmail.commailto:bjunity@gmail.com" <bjunity@gmail.commailto:bjunity@gmail.com>
Reply-To: "chef@lists.opscode.commailto:chef@lists.opscode.com" <chef@lists.opscode.commailto:chef@lists.opscode.com>
Date: Friday, October 19, 2012 7:17 AM
To: "chef@lists.opscode.commailto:chef@lists.opscode.com" <chef@lists.opscode.commailto:chef@lists.opscode.com>

Subject: [chef] Re: Re: Re: Chef-client slow on Windows

Unfortunately 10.14.2 is also affected.

Please see my ticket:

http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-3485

Hi ,

We wanted to know if there has been any significant improvement around this
. I feel this pain day in and day out and have had a lot of complaints from
various users around the slowness.

Thanks,
Madhurranjan

On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 4:31 AM, Christopher Brown cb@opscode.com wrote:

Yes, this is something I've asked the team to prioritize. We'll be
taking a close look at Windows support in general between now and the end
of the year.

Chris

Christopher Brown
Chief Technology Officer,
Opscode, Inc.
http://www.opscode.com
Twitter: @skeptomai


From: Madhurranjan Mohaan [maadhuuranjan.m@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2012 11:48 AM
To: chef@lists.opscode.com
Subject: [chef] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Chef-client slow on Windows

Can we , the windows users, ( unfortunately I guess we don't have a
choice!) request for some help on the platform ? The 100% CPU thing is
interesting as I just noticed the same on Win 2008 . Thanks for pointing
that out. We are going live in Production in a month's time and I am afraid
all the work we have done might be rejected by the Ops folks of the
customer due to these reasons.

Ranjan

On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 1:47 AM, Tim Smith Tim.Smith@webtrends.comwrote:

I can confirm that 10.14.4 is still impacted

From: "bjunity@gmail.com" bjunity@gmail.com
Reply-To: "chef@lists.opscode.com" chef@lists.opscode.com
Date: Friday, October 19, 2012 7:17 AM
To: "chef@lists.opscode.com" chef@lists.opscode.com

Subject: [chef] Re: Re: Re: Chef-client slow on Windows

Unfortunately 10.14.2 is also affected.

Please see my ticket:

http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-3485

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 at 9:31 PM, Madhurranjan Mohaan wrote:

Hi ,

We wanted to know if there has been any significant improvement around this . I feel this pain day in and day out and have had a lot of complaints from various users around the slowness.

Thanks,
Madhurranjan

We're continuing to investigate. In the meantime, we've learned that Ruby 1.9.3 has some significant performance benefits over Ruby 1.9.2, so we've released an updated Chef 10.16.4 MSI which includes Ruby 1.9.3. You can get it here:

--
Daniel DeLeo

Wow - this is awesome. Been waiting for this for a while as well.

I wonder if that solves this ticket:
http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-3569

I'll do a test on an R2 node on Rackspace to see if we're seeing better
performance with 2008 R2

In a quick test on EC2 - Windows 2008 (non r2)

Same set of cookbooks & configs, a chef run finishes in 28sec vs 75sec
using the 10.16.2 msi package.

Great work guys!

-Pete

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Daniel DeLeo dan@kallistec.com wrote:

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 at 9:31 PM, Madhurranjan Mohaan wrote:

Hi ,

We wanted to know if there has been any significant improvement around
this . I feel this pain day in and day out and have had a lot of complaints
from various users around the slowness.

Thanks,
Madhurranjan

We're continuing to investigate. In the meantime, we've learned that Ruby
1.9.3 has some significant performance benefits over Ruby 1.9.2, so we've
released an updated Chef 10.16.4 MSI which includes Ruby 1.9.3. You can get
it here:

http://www.opscode.com/chef/install/

--
Daniel DeLeo

I am trying to use the information here [1] to have a recipe run before any resource convergence. We are using this to modify any gem package resources to use a http_proxy (to eliminate or at least reduce the FetchErrors that we often experience with rubygems.org. We also want to ensure that only one ‘apt-get update’ occurs in the Chef run as these are relatively expensive and we need as rapid a convergence as possible. These are peppered amongst a variety of community cookbooks that we are using (use case: deploying Rails apps on MySQL or PostgreSQL).

When my code runs, some resources have already converged. I put the recipe as the last item in the runlist which obviously doesn’t work.

The key words in [1] are “This can be done today by simply making the recipes that include your ‘after’ hooks run at the end of the compilation”. Any advice from folks on how to “simply” make this happen?

Regards,
Wazza

[1] http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/After+hooks