# Chef Search Again

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [June 16, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671 "2015-06-16T18:50:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 16\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Douglas\_Garstang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Douglas\_Garstang](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Douglas_Garstang)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/1 "2015-06-16T18:50:33Z")

</div>

The battle continues with chef search. I’m trying to use chef search to  
discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is node.save,  
which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access to the data  
I need, the role and the environment.

I just did a test, where one window had the result of “knife search node  
"chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper”. I could see that the data  
was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes later,  
when the recipe did it’s search, no nodes were found, as evidenced from an  
empty log() statement in the recipe.

I’ve run the test a few times, and basically, the result are unreliable. On  
my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes, and one of the  
nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).

How can I make this reliable?

Doug

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Douglas\_Garstang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Douglas\_Garstang](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Douglas_Garstang)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/2 "2015-06-16T19:14:55Z")

</div>

Well, I've tried putting both a 60s and a 90s sleep before the call to chef  
search. No improvement. I rerun the chef-client again and the nodes appear.  
It appears that node.save() at the start of the run list updates the node  
on the server, but it _still_ don't work for searches. ☹

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
wrote:

> The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef search to  
> discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is node.save,  
> which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access to the data  
> I need, the role and the environment.
> 
> I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search node  
> "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the data  
> was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes later,  
> when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced from an  
> empty log() statement in the recipe.
> 
> I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are unreliable.  
> On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes, and one of  
> the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).
> 
> How can I make this reliable?
> 
> Doug

--  
Regards,

Douglas Garstang  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Douglas\_Garstang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Douglas\_Garstang](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Douglas_Garstang)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/3 "2015-06-16T19:31:08Z")

</div>

Ok, I thought, I'll write a new cookbook called nodesave and put JUST  
node.save in it. Then, I'll simply call chef twice, the first time passing  
just the nodesave cookbook. This should cause the node data to be populated  
at the end of the first run, available in the second run, Well trying to do  
a node.save on vagrant results in:

"I cannot read /etc/chef/client.pem, which you told me to use to sign  
requests!"

Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as  
node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client  
run.

Doug.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:14 PM, Douglas Garstang [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
wrote:

> Well, I've tried putting both a 60s and a 90s sleep before the call to  
> chef search. No improvement. I rerun the chef-client again and the nodes  
> appear. It appears that node.save() at the start of the run list updates  
> the node on the server, but it _still_ don't work for searches. ☹
> 
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> 
> > The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef search to  
> > discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is node.save,  
> > which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access to the data  
> > I need, the role and the environment.
> > 
> > I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search node  
> > "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the data  
> > was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes later,  
> > when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced from an  
> > empty log() statement in the recipe.
> > 
> > I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are unreliable.  
> > On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes, and one of  
> > the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).
> > 
> > How can I make this reliable?
> > 
> > Doug
> 
> --  
> Regards,
> 
> Douglas Garstang  
> [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> Cell: +1-805-340-5627

--  
Regards,

Douglas Garstang  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sdelano](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/sdelano/32/35_2.png) [@sdelano](https://discourse.chef.io/u/sdelano)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 7:38pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/4 "2015-06-16T19:38:35Z")

</div>

> Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client run.

How are you running this “dummy” chef-client run? If you change the run-list to remove the role role-zookeeper, your node will be persisted without this role and without the attributes associated with it. You’ll have a period of time where the roles attribute of the node does NOT contain what you’re looking for and searches will fail.

—  
Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang  
[doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com) wrote:

> The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef search to  
> discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is node.save,  
> which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access to the data  
> I need, the role and the environment.  
> I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search node  
> "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the data  
> was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes later,  
> when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced from an  
> empty log() statement in the recipe.  
> I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are unreliable. On  
> my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes, and one of the  
> nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).  
> How can I make this reliable?  
> Doug

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Douglas\_Garstang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Douglas\_Garstang](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Douglas_Garstang)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/5 "2015-06-16T19:51:14Z")

</div>

Stephen,

Well, I just tried using chef-client -r dummy and that worked. However,  
that permanently replaces the run list on the chef server. If I now run  
chef-client, hoping to use the zookeeper cookbook formerly associated with  
the node, it's been replaced by the dummy one. I am so frustrated. ☹

Doug.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Stephen Delano [stephen@opscode.com](mailto:stephen@opscode.com)  
wrote:

> > Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as  
> > node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client  
> > run.
> 
> How are you running this “dummy” chef-client run? If you change the  
> run-list to remove the role role-zookeeper, your node will be persisted  
> without this role and without the attributes associated with it. You’ll  
> have a period of time where the roles attribute of the node does NOT  
> contain what you’re looking for and searches will fail.
> 
> —  
> Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef
> 
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> 
> > The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef search  
> > to discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is  
> > node.save, which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access  
> > to the data I need, the role and the environment.
> > 
> > I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search node  
> > "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the data  
> > was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes later,  
> > when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced from an  
> > empty log() statement in the recipe.
> > 
> > I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are unreliable.  
> > On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes, and one of  
> > the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).
> > 
> > How can I make this reliable?
> > 
> > Doug

--  
Regards,

Douglas Garstang  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Douglas\_Garstang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Douglas\_Garstang](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Douglas_Garstang)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/6 "2015-06-16T19:58:32Z")

</div>

So, let me summarise this sorry situation...

1. By default, data about nodes isn't available until after the chef client  
has run at least once.
2. Node.save at the start of the run list should fix this, but it does not.
3. Putting a 60s/90s sleep before the knife search, which should allow solr  
to complete a re-index has no effect.
4. Doing a dummy run of the chef-client and pointing it to a no-op recipe  
to get around (1) above requires passing the -r option which has the side  
effect of updating the run list on the chef server so that the next call to  
chef-client uses the dummy cookbook, not the cookbook this node was  
originally provisioned to use.
5. Even if node.save did work, it won't run on vagrant and throws an error.

Did someone intentionally design chef server to induce scraping eyes out  
with a rusty razor blade? I'm pretty fed up.

Doug.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:51 PM, Douglas Garstang [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
wrote:

> Stephen,
> 
> Well, I just tried using chef-client -r dummy and that worked. However,  
> that permanently replaces the run list on the chef server. If I now run  
> chef-client, hoping to use the zookeeper cookbook formerly associated with  
> the node, it's been replaced by the dummy one. I am so frustrated. ☹
> 
> Doug.
> 
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Stephen Delano [stephen@opscode.com](mailto:stephen@opscode.com)  
> wrote:
> 
> > > Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as  
> > > node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client  
> > > run.
> > 
> > How are you running this “dummy” chef-client run? If you change the  
> > run-list to remove the role role-zookeeper, your node will be persisted  
> > without this role and without the attributes associated with it. You’ll  
> > have a period of time where the roles attribute of the node does NOT  
> > contain what you’re looking for and searches will fail.
> > 
> > —  
> > Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef
> > 
> > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > 
> > > The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef search  
> > > to discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is  
> > > node.save, which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access  
> > > to the data I need, the role and the environment.
> > > 
> > > I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search node  
> > > "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the data  
> > > was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes later,  
> > > when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced from an  
> > > empty log() statement in the recipe.
> > > 
> > > I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are unreliable.  
> > > On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes, and one of  
> > > the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).
> > > 
> > > How can I make this reliable?
> > > 
> > > Doug
> 
> --  
> Regards,
> 
> Douglas Garstang  
> [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> Cell: +1-805-340-5627

--  
Regards,

Douglas Garstang  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sdelano](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/sdelano/32/35_2.png) [@sdelano](https://discourse.chef.io/u/sdelano)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/7 "2015-06-16T20:24:20Z")

</div>

> 1. By default, data about nodes isn’t available until after the chef client has run at least once.

This is correct.

> 1. Node.save at the start of the run list should fix this, but it does not.

Are you running node.save inside of a ruby block or are you running it at compile time? I’m not familiar enough with the Chef Client to know whether one of those is the better option for you or not, but it might be worth printing out `node.to_json` to see exactly what is getting sent to the Chef Server.

> 1. Putting a 60s/90s sleep before the knife search, which should allow solr to complete a re-index has no effect.

Which version of the Chef Server are you running? Chef Server 12 ships with Solr 4 and is configured to make updates to the search index available for searching once per second as opposed to once per minute in Chef Server 11.

> 1. Even if node.save did work, it won’t run on vagrant and throws an error.

That error you posted seems to imply that the client had trouble reading /etc/chef/client.pem. This is strictly a client-side issue. Does this file exist? If so, what are the permissions on it? Did you run chef-client as root?

—  
Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:58 PM, Douglas Garstang  
[doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com) wrote:

> So, let me summarise this sorry situation...
> 
> 1. By default, data about nodes isn't available until after the chef client  
> has run at least once.
> 2. Node.save at the start of the run list should fix this, but it does not.
> 3. Putting a 60s/90s sleep before the knife search, which should allow solr  
> to complete a re-index has no effect.
> 4. Doing a dummy run of the chef-client and pointing it to a no-op recipe  
> to get around (1) above requires passing the -r option which has the side  
> effect of updating the run list on the chef server so that the next call to  
> chef-client uses the dummy cookbook, not the cookbook this node was  
> originally provisioned to use.
> 5. Even if node.save did work, it won't run on vagrant and throws an error.  
> Did someone intentionally design chef server to induce scraping eyes out  
> with a rusty razor blade? I'm pretty fed up.  
> Doug.  
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:51 PM, Douglas Garstang [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> wrote:
> 
> > Stephen,
> > 
> > Well, I just tried using chef-client -r dummy and that worked. However,  
> > that permanently replaces the run list on the chef server. If I now run  
> > chef-client, hoping to use the zookeeper cookbook formerly associated with  
> > the node, it's been replaced by the dummy one. I am so frustrated. ☹
> > 
> > Doug.
> > 
> > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Stephen Delano [stephen@opscode.com](mailto:stephen@opscode.com)  
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > > Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as  
> > > > node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client  
> > > > run.
> > > 
> > > How are you running this “dummy” chef-client run? If you change the  
> > > run-list to remove the role role-zookeeper, your node will be persisted  
> > > without this role and without the attributes associated with it. You’ll  
> > > have a period of time where the roles attribute of the node does NOT  
> > > contain what you’re looking for and searches will fail.
> > > 
> > > —  
> > > Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> > > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef search  
> > > > to discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is  
> > > > node.save, which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access  
> > > > to the data I need, the role and the environment.
> > > > 
> > > > I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search node  
> > > > "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the data  
> > > > was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes later,  
> > > > when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced from an  
> > > > empty log() statement in the recipe.
> > > > 
> > > > I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are unreliable.  
> > > > On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes, and one of  
> > > > the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).
> > > > 
> > > > How can I make this reliable?
> > > > 
> > > > Doug
> > 
> > --  
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Douglas Garstang  
> > [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> > Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> > Cell: +1-805-340-5627
> 
> --  
> Regards,  
> Douglas Garstang  
> [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Douglas\_Garstang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Douglas\_Garstang](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Douglas_Garstang)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/8 "2015-06-16T20:32:32Z")

</div>

Stephen,

1. No ruby block. Compile time I guess.

2. I'm using chef 11, but I tried both a 60s and a 90s sleep and it had no  
effect.

3. It's vagrant. Chef solo. There is no client.pem file as far as I know.

Doug.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 1:24 PM, Stephen Delano [stephen@opscode.com](mailto:stephen@opscode.com) wrote:

> > 1. By default, data about nodes isn’t available until after the chef  
> > client has run at least once.
> 
> This is correct.
> 
> > 1. Node.save at the start of the run list should fix this, but it does  
> > not.
> 
> Are you running node.save inside of a ruby block or are you running it at  
> compile time? I’m not familiar enough with the Chef Client to know whether  
> one of those is the better option for you or not, but it might be worth  
> printing out `node.to_json` to see exactly what is getting sent to the Chef  
> Server.
> 
> > 1. Putting a 60s/90s sleep before the knife search, which should allow  
> > solr to complete a re-index has no effect.
> 
> Which version of the Chef Server are you running? Chef Server 12 ships  
> with Solr 4 and is configured to make updates to the search index available  
> for searching once per second as opposed to once per minute in Chef Server  
> 11.
> 
> > 1. Even if node.save did work, it won’t run on vagrant and throws an  
> > error.
> 
> That error you posted seems to imply that the client had trouble reading  
> /etc/chef/client.pem. This is strictly a client-side issue. Does this file  
> exist? If so, what are the permissions on it? Did you run chef-client as  
> root?
> 
> —  
> Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef
> 
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:58 PM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> 
> > So, let me summarise this sorry situation...
> > 
> > 1. By default, data about nodes isn't available until after the chef  
> > client has run at least once.
> > 2. Node.save at the start of the run list should fix this, but it does  
> > not.
> > 3. Putting a 60s/90s sleep before the knife search, which should allow  
> > solr to complete a re-index has no effect.
> > 4. Doing a dummy run of the chef-client and pointing it to a no-op recipe  
> > to get around (1) above requires passing the -r option which has the side  
> > effect of updating the run list on the chef server so that the next call to  
> > chef-client uses the dummy cookbook, not the cookbook this node was  
> > originally provisioned to use.
> > 5. Even if node.save did work, it won't run on vagrant and throws an  
> > error.
> > 
> > Did someone intentionally design chef server to induce scraping eyes out  
> > with a rusty razor blade? I'm pretty fed up.
> > 
> > Doug.
> > 
> > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:51 PM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > 
> > > Stephen,
> > > 
> > > Well, I just tried using chef-client -r dummy and that worked. However,  
> > > that permanently replaces the run list on the chef server. If I now run  
> > > chef-client, hoping to use the zookeeper cookbook formerly associated with  
> > > the node, it's been replaced by the dummy one. I am so frustrated. ☹
> > > 
> > > Doug.
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Stephen Delano [stephen@opscode.com](mailto:stephen@opscode.com)  
> > > wrote:
> > > 
> > > > > Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as  
> > > > > node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client  
> > > > > run.
> > > > 
> > > > How are you running this “dummy” chef-client run? If you change the  
> > > > run-list to remove the role role-zookeeper, your node will be persisted  
> > > > without this role and without the attributes associated with it. You’ll  
> > > > have a period of time where the roles attribute of the node does NOT  
> > > > contain what you’re looking for and searches will fail.
> > > > 
> > > > —  
> > > > Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef
> > > > 
> > > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> > > > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef  
> > > > > search to discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is  
> > > > > node.save, which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access  
> > > > > to the data I need, the role and the environment.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search  
> > > > > node "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the  
> > > > > data was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes  
> > > > > later, when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced  
> > > > > from an empty log() statement in the recipe.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are  
> > > > > unreliable. On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes,  
> > > > > and one of the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).
> > > > > 
> > > > > How can I make this reliable?
> > > > > 
> > > > > Doug
> > > 
> > > --  
> > > Regards,
> > > 
> > > Douglas Garstang  
> > > [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> > > Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> > > Cell: +1-805-340-5627
> > 
> > --  
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Douglas Garstang  
> > [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> > Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> > Cell: +1-805-340-5627

--  
Regards,

Douglas Garstang  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![someara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@someara](https://discourse.chef.io/u/someara)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/9 "2015-06-16T20:42:17Z")

</div>

Welcome to the wonder world of distributed systems!

If you're going to use Chef search as a service discovery mechanism,  
you're going to face these limitations.

Saving the node object to the Chef Server at the end of the run is "by  
design". A node that's not fully converged is likely not functional  
yet. For example, if you has a load balancer searching for web server  
nodes to include them in a pool, you don't want a machine that's half  
configured and not serving data in your pool yet.

In the general case, I'd recommend using Real Service Discovery  
protocol for your service discovery.

However, since you're attempting to do just that, (setting up  
zookeeper), something gotta give.

You are, by the very nature of your problem, going to be forced to  
write some error handling code, and do multiple converges in this  
scenario. This is not a limitation of Chef or Chef Server. This is a  
general problem.

-s

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 3:58 PM, Douglas Garstang  
[doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com) wrote:

> So, let me summarise this sorry situation...
> 
> 1. By default, data about nodes isn't available until after the chef client  
> has run at least once.
> 2. Node.save at the start of the run list should fix this, but it does not.
> 3. Putting a 60s/90s sleep before the knife search, which should allow solr  
> to complete a re-index has no effect.
> 4. Doing a dummy run of the chef-client and pointing it to a no-op recipe to  
> get around (1) above requires passing the -r option which has the side  
> effect of updating the run list on the chef server so that the next call to  
> chef-client uses the dummy cookbook, not the cookbook this node was  
> originally provisioned to use.
> 5. Even if node.save did work, it won't run on vagrant and throws an error.
> 
> Did someone intentionally design chef server to induce scraping eyes out  
> with a rusty razor blade? I'm pretty fed up.
> 
> Doug.
> 
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:51 PM, Douglas Garstang [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> wrote:
> 
> > Stephen,
> > 
> > Well, I just tried using chef-client -r dummy and that worked. However,  
> > that permanently replaces the run list on the chef server. If I now run  
> > chef-client, hoping to use the zookeeper cookbook formerly associated with  
> > the node, it's been replaced by the dummy one. I am so frustrated. ☹
> > 
> > Doug.
> > 
> > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Stephen Delano [stephen@opscode.com](mailto:stephen@opscode.com)  
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > > Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as  
> > > > node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client  
> > > > run.
> > > 
> > > How are you running this “dummy” chef-client run? If you change the  
> > > run-list to remove the role role-zookeeper, your node will be persisted  
> > > without this role and without the attributes associated with it. You’ll have  
> > > a period of time where the roles attribute of the node does NOT contain what  
> > > you’re looking for and searches will fail.
> > > 
> > > —  
> > > Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang  
> > > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com) wrote:
> > > 
> > > > The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef search to  
> > > > discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is node.save,  
> > > > which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access to the data  
> > > > I need, the role and the environment.
> > > > 
> > > > I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search node  
> > > > "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the data  
> > > > was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes later,  
> > > > when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced from an  
> > > > empty log() statement in the recipe.
> > > > 
> > > > I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are unreliable.  
> > > > On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes, and one of  
> > > > the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).
> > > > 
> > > > How can I make this reliable?
> > > > 
> > > > Doug
> > 
> > --  
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Douglas Garstang  
> > [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> > Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> > Cell: +1-805-340-5627
> 
> --  
> Regards,
> 
> Douglas Garstang  
> [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lamont\_Granquist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lamont\_Granquist](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Lamont_Granquist)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/10 "2015-06-16T21:10:01Z")

</div>

On 6/16/15 1:32 PM, Douglas Garstang wrote:

> 1. It's vagrant. Chef solo. There is no client.pem file as far as I know.  
> Chef-solo doesn't have a server to talk to in order to node.save or post  
> results to search. The node.save turns into a NOP transparently in  
> chef-solo. You can go down the road of chef-solo-search but then  
> eventually data bags will troll you. At some point people wind up  
> trying to write a stub chef-server for chef-solo to talk to and replace  
> all the APIs which is just going to fight with all the special cases of  
> chef-solo to make it NOT talk to a server which are littered around the  
> codebase.

The correct way forwards is to use chef-zero instead of chef-solo and  
have a normal fully functional chef-client that expects to talk to a  
chef server talking to the chef-zero server. Otherwise you will  
continue to fight the tool.

+1 on using Chef Server 12 and/or Hosted Chef with Solr 4 which will get  
the required sleep down from a couple minutes to a couple seconds.

You can also use an overrride run list instead of -r to run a recipe  
without updating the run\_list.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Douglas\_Garstang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Douglas\_Garstang](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Douglas_Garstang)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/11 "2015-06-16T21:17:35Z")

</div>

Thanks all.

Here's my solution...

aws ec2 describe-instances --region us-east-1 --filter  
"Name=tag:role,Values=role-zookeeper" "Name=tag:environment,Values=dev"  
"Name=instance-state-name,Values=running" --query  
'Reservations.Instances.Tags[?Key==`Name`].Value'

throw that in a ohai plugin, convert the output to json, and I'm good to go.

Doug.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 2:10 PM, Lamont Granquist [lamont@chef.io](mailto:lamont@chef.io) wrote:

> On 6/16/15 1:32 PM, Douglas Garstang wrote:
> 
> > 1. It's vagrant. Chef solo. There is no client.pem file as far as I know.
> 
> Chef-solo doesn't have a server to talk to in order to node.save or post  
> results to search. The node.save turns into a NOP transparently in  
> chef-solo. You can go down the road of chef-solo-search but then  
> eventually data bags will troll you. At some point people wind up trying  
> to write a stub chef-server for chef-solo to talk to and replace all the  
> APIs which is just going to fight with all the special cases of chef-solo  
> to make it NOT talk to a server which are littered around the codebase.
> 
> The correct way forwards is to use chef-zero instead of chef-solo and have  
> a normal fully functional chef-client that expects to talk to a chef server  
> talking to the chef-zero server. Otherwise you will continue to fight the  
> tool.
> 
> +1 on using Chef Server 12 and/or Hosted Chef with Solr 4 which will get  
> the required sleep down from a couple minutes to a couple seconds.
> 
> You can also use an overrride run list instead of -r to run a recipe  
> without updating the run\_list.

--  
Regards,

Douglas Garstang  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Douglas\_Garstang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Douglas\_Garstang](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Douglas_Garstang)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/12 "2015-06-16T21:32:09Z")

</div>

Lamont,

The node.save doesn't turn into a noop in chef solo. It breaks it with the  
error I mentioned earlier.

As for the -r option, it updates the run list on the node on the chef  
server. It's not a local thing.

Doug.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 2:10 PM, Lamont Granquist [lamont@chef.io](mailto:lamont@chef.io) wrote:

> On 6/16/15 1:32 PM, Douglas Garstang wrote:
> 
> > 1. It's vagrant. Chef solo. There is no client.pem file as far as I know.
> 
> Chef-solo doesn't have a server to talk to in order to node.save or post  
> results to search. The node.save turns into a NOP transparently in  
> chef-solo. You can go down the road of chef-solo-search but then  
> eventually data bags will troll you. At some point people wind up trying  
> to write a stub chef-server for chef-solo to talk to and replace all the  
> APIs which is just going to fight with all the special cases of chef-solo  
> to make it NOT talk to a server which are littered around the codebase.
> 
> The correct way forwards is to use chef-zero instead of chef-solo and have  
> a normal fully functional chef-client that expects to talk to a chef server  
> talking to the chef-zero server. Otherwise you will continue to fight the  
> tool.
> 
> +1 on using Chef Server 12 and/or Hosted Chef with Solr 4 which will get  
> the required sleep down from a couple minutes to a couple seconds.
> 
> You can also use an overrride run list instead of -r to run a recipe  
> without updating the run\_list.

--  
Regards,

Douglas Garstang  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chip](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/chip/32/15_2.png) [@Chip](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Chip)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 10:34pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/13 "2015-06-16T22:34:50Z")

</div>

Doug,

This is another reminder that the Chef community guidelines apply to all posts in this list, and that “be respectful” is part of those guidelines. Thoughtful, passionate human beings work hard on the Chef server. If you need a refresher, the guidelines are available for review here: [Chef Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct](https://docs.chef.io/community_guidelines.html) . I strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with these guidelines as quickly as possible, and adhere to them strictly in the future.

While it is clear that you are fed up, and your frustration is completely understandable, saying things like “this sorry situation" and "scraping eyes out with a rusty razor blade” shuts down conversation instead of inviting response. It’s possible to be open and critical when sharing your frustrations around the functionality of the Chef server, without being dismissive of the work that has gone and continues to go into creating it.

This is not the first time someone has said something to you about your rhetoric on this list. Unless you are able to show that you can understand the difference between honesty and candor, it will be the last.

Thanks,  
--Charles

On June 16, 2015 at 12:59:12 PM, Douglas Garstang ([doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)) wrote:

So, let me summarise this sorry situation...

1. By default, data about nodes isn't available until after the chef client has run at least once.
2. Node.save at the start of the run list should fix this, but it does not.
3. Putting a 60s/90s sleep before the knife search, which should allow solr to complete a re-index has no effect.
4. Doing a dummy run of the chef-client and pointing it to a no-op recipe to get around (1) above requires passing the -r option which has the side effect of updating the run list on the chef server so that the next call to chef-client uses the dummy cookbook, not the cookbook this node was originally provisioned to use.
5. Even if node.save did work, it won't run on vagrant and throws an error.

Did someone intentionally design chef server to induce scraping eyes out with a rusty razor blade? I'm pretty fed up.

Doug.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:51 PM, Douglas Garstang [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com) wrote:  
Stephen,

Well, I just tried using chef-client -r dummy and that worked. However, that permanently replaces the run list on the chef server. If I now run chef-client, hoping to use the zookeeper cookbook formerly associated with the node, it's been replaced by the dummy one. I am so frustrated. ☹

Doug.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Stephen Delano [stephen@opscode.com](mailto:stephen@opscode.com) wrote:

> Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client run.

How are you running this “dummy” chef-client run? If you change the run-list to remove the role role-zookeeper, your node will be persisted without this role and without the attributes associated with it. You’ll have a period of time where the roles attribute of the node does NOT contain what you’re looking for and searches will fail.

—  
Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com) wrote:

The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef search to discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is node.save, which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access to the data I need, the role and the environment.

I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search node "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the data was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes later, when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced from an empty log() statement in the recipe.

I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are unreliable. On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes, and one of the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).

How can I make this reliable?

Doug

--  
Regards,

Douglas Garstang  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

--  
Regards,

Douglas Garstang  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Douglas\_Garstang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@Douglas\_Garstang](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Douglas_Garstang)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/14 "2015-06-16T22:41:47Z")

</div>

Charles,

Your response viewed. After viewing the community guidelines, I see nothing  
there about using colorful language to explain a personal frustrating  
situation being against the rules. I do however see obvious things like  
personal threats against others, sexual harassment etc. Having said this, I  
realise I risk being removed for speaking my mind. If that's what  
eventuates, then let it stand as a matter of public record that I  
politefully disagree with your assesment.

Perhaps the community guidelines need to be updated to be more restrictive  
in nature?

Douglas.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 3:34 PM, Charles Johnson [charles@chef.io](mailto:charles@chef.io) wrote:

> Doug,
> 
> This is another reminder that the Chef community guidelines apply to all  
> posts in this list, and that “be respectful” is part of those guidelines.  
> Thoughtful, passionate human beings work hard on the Chef server. If you  
> need a refresher, the guidelines are available for review here:  
> [Chef Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct](https://docs.chef.io/community_guidelines.html) . I strongly suggest you  
> familiarize yourself with these guidelines as quickly as possible, and  
> adhere to them strictly in the future.
> 
> While it is clear that you are fed up, and your frustration is completely  
> understandable, saying things like “this sorry situation" and "scraping  
> eyes out with a rusty razor blade” shuts down conversation instead of  
> inviting response. It’s possible to be open and critical when sharing your  
> frustrations around the functionality of the Chef server, without being  
> dismissive of the work that has gone and continues to go into creating it.
> 
> This is not the first time someone has said something to you about your  
> rhetoric on this list. Unless you are able to show that you can understand  
> the difference between honesty and candor, it will be the last.  
> Thanks,  
> --Charles
> 
> On June 16, 2015 at 12:59:12 PM, Douglas Garstang ([doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com))  
> wrote:
> 
> So, let me summarise this sorry situation...
> 
> 1. By default, data about nodes isn't available until after the chef  
> client has run at least once.
> 2. Node.save at the start of the run list should fix this, but it does not.
> 3. Putting a 60s/90s sleep before the knife search, which should allow  
> solr to complete a re-index has no effect.
> 4. Doing a dummy run of the chef-client and pointing it to a no-op recipe  
> to get around (1) above requires passing the -r option which has the side  
> effect of updating the run list on the chef server so that the next call to  
> chef-client uses the dummy cookbook, not the cookbook this node was  
> originally provisioned to use.
> 5. Even if node.save did work, it won't run on vagrant and throws an error.
> 
> Did someone intentionally design chef server to induce scraping eyes out  
> with a rusty razor blade? I'm pretty fed up.
> 
> Doug.
> 
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:51 PM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> 
> > Stephen,
> > 
> > Well, I just tried using chef-client -r dummy and that worked. However,  
> > that permanently replaces the run list on the chef server. If I now run  
> > chef-client, hoping to use the zookeeper cookbook formerly associated with  
> > the node, it's been replaced by the dummy one. I am so frustrated. ☹
> > 
> > Doug.
> > 
> > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Stephen Delano [stephen@opscode.com](mailto:stephen@opscode.com)  
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > > Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as  
> > > > node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client  
> > > > run.
> > > 
> > > How are you running this “dummy” chef-client run? If you change the  
> > > run-list to remove the role role-zookeeper, your node will be persisted  
> > > without this role and without the attributes associated with it. You’ll  
> > > have a period of time where the roles attribute of the node does NOT  
> > > contain what you’re looking for and searches will fail.
> > > 
> > > —  
> > > Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> > > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef  
> > > > search to discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is  
> > > > node.save, which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access  
> > > > to the data I need, the role and the environment.
> > > > 
> > > > I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search  
> > > > node "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the  
> > > > data was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes  
> > > > later, when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced  
> > > > from an empty log() statement in the recipe.
> > > > 
> > > > I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are  
> > > > unreliable. On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes,  
> > > > and one of the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).
> > > > 
> > > > How can I make this reliable?
> > > > 
> > > > Doug
> > 
> > --  
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Douglas Garstang  
> > [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> > Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> > Cell: +1-805-340-5627
> 
> --  
> Regards,
> 
> Douglas Garstang  
> [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> Cell: +1-805-340-5627

--  
Regards,

Douglas Garstang  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Nathen\_Harvey3](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/nathen_harvey3/32/16_2.png) [@Nathen\_Harvey3](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Nathen_Harvey3)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/15 "2015-06-17T14:35:09Z")

</div>

Douglas,

Your message ([chef - [chef] Re: Re: Chef Search Again](http://lists.opscode.com/sympa/arc/chef/2015-06/msg00189.html))  
includes language that is not considerate, respectful, or professional.

"Did someone intentionally design chef server to induce scraping eyes out  
with a rusty razor blade?" goes beyond describing your personal  
frustrations. Clearly, you are frustrated and are having difficulty  
getting Chef to behave the way you'd like.

Our Community Guidelines require that you:

"Be careful in the words that you choose. Be kind to others. Do not insult  
or put down others."

and

- Be considerate.
- Be respectful.
- Be professional.
- Be careful in the words that you choose.

Eventually, your questions to the list will be ignored unless this behavior  
improves. Additionally, continuing to post messages that are not in  
keeping with our community guidelines will lead to corrective action which  
will likely mean banning you from the community mailing list. I don't  
really think anyone wants that.

I would welcome a live discussion via phone or video chat to answer any  
additional questions you have. Please let me know what time would work  
best for you.

Thank you,  
Nathen Harvey  
Community Director, Chef  
202.368.7264

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 6:41 PM, Douglas Garstang [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
wrote:

> Charles,
> 
> Your response viewed. After viewing the community guidelines, I see  
> nothing there about using colorful language to explain a personal  
> frustrating situation being against the rules. I do however see obvious  
> things like personal threats against others, sexual harassment etc. Having  
> said this, I realise I risk being removed for speaking my mind. If that's  
> what eventuates, then let it stand as a matter of public record that I  
> politefully disagree with your assesment.
> 
> Perhaps the community guidelines need to be updated to be more restrictive  
> in nature?
> 
> Douglas.
> 
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 3:34 PM, Charles Johnson [charles@chef.io](mailto:charles@chef.io) wrote:
> 
> > Doug,
> > 
> > This is another reminder that the Chef community guidelines apply to all  
> > posts in this list, and that “be respectful” is part of those guidelines.  
> > Thoughtful, passionate human beings work hard on the Chef server. If you  
> > need a refresher, the guidelines are available for review here:  
> > [Chef Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct](https://docs.chef.io/community_guidelines.html) . I strongly suggest you  
> > familiarize yourself with these guidelines as quickly as possible, and  
> > adhere to them strictly in the future.
> > 
> > While it is clear that you are fed up, and your frustration is completely  
> > understandable, saying things like “this sorry situation" and "scraping  
> > eyes out with a rusty razor blade” shuts down conversation instead of  
> > inviting response. It’s possible to be open and critical when sharing your  
> > frustrations around the functionality of the Chef server, without being  
> > dismissive of the work that has gone and continues to go into creating it.
> > 
> > This is not the first time someone has said something to you about your  
> > rhetoric on this list. Unless you are able to show that you can understand  
> > the difference between honesty and candor, it will be the last.  
> > Thanks,  
> > --Charles
> > 
> > On June 16, 2015 at 12:59:12 PM, Douglas Garstang (  
> > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)) wrote:
> > 
> > So, let me summarise this sorry situation...
> > 
> > 1. By default, data about nodes isn't available until after the chef  
> > client has run at least once.
> > 2. Node.save at the start of the run list should fix this, but it does  
> > not.
> > 3. Putting a 60s/90s sleep before the knife search, which should allow  
> > solr to complete a re-index has no effect.
> > 4. Doing a dummy run of the chef-client and pointing it to a no-op recipe  
> > to get around (1) above requires passing the -r option which has the side  
> > effect of updating the run list on the chef server so that the next call to  
> > chef-client uses the dummy cookbook, not the cookbook this node was  
> > originally provisioned to use.
> > 5. Even if node.save did work, it won't run on vagrant and throws an  
> > error.
> > 
> > Did someone intentionally design chef server to induce scraping eyes out  
> > with a rusty razor blade? I'm pretty fed up.
> > 
> > Doug.
> > 
> > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:51 PM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > 
> > > Stephen,
> > > 
> > > Well, I just tried using chef-client -r dummy and that worked. However,  
> > > that permanently replaces the run list on the chef server. If I now run  
> > > chef-client, hoping to use the zookeeper cookbook formerly associated with  
> > > the node, it's been replaced by the dummy one. I am so frustrated. ☹
> > > 
> > > Doug.
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Stephen Delano [stephen@opscode.com](mailto:stephen@opscode.com)  
> > > wrote:
> > > 
> > > > > Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as  
> > > > > node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client  
> > > > > run.
> > > > 
> > > > How are you running this “dummy” chef-client run? If you change the  
> > > > run-list to remove the role role-zookeeper, your node will be persisted  
> > > > without this role and without the attributes associated with it. You’ll  
> > > > have a period of time where the roles attribute of the node does NOT  
> > > > contain what you’re looking for and searches will fail.
> > > > 
> > > > —  
> > > > Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef
> > > > 
> > > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> > > > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef  
> > > > > search to discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is  
> > > > > node.save, which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access  
> > > > > to the data I need, the role and the environment.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search  
> > > > > node "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the  
> > > > > data was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes  
> > > > > later, when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced  
> > > > > from an empty log() statement in the recipe.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are  
> > > > > unreliable. On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes,  
> > > > > and one of the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).
> > > > > 
> > > > > How can I make this reliable?
> > > > > 
> > > > > Doug
> > > 
> > > --  
> > > Regards,
> > > 
> > > Douglas Garstang  
> > > [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> > > Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> > > Cell: +1-805-340-5627
> > 
> > --  
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Douglas Garstang  
> > [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> > Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> > Cell: +1-805-340-5627
> 
> --  
> Regards,
> 
> Douglas Garstang  
> [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> Cell: +1-805-340-5627

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dennis\_Lovely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bc79bd/32.png) [@Dennis\_Lovely](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Dennis_Lovely)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 10:19pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-search-again/6671/16 "2015-06-17T22:19:19Z")

</div>

For us, we define our zookeeper ensemble as a hash, at our environment  
layer. I know, it's not chef-search and you'd like to use it, but I  
consider ZK to be an extremely mission-critical piece, and I like to  
minimize the elasticness/reconfiguration of him as much as possible, just  
to err on the side of caution as it can be an extremely touchy beast. All  
I need is a service outage triggered by a bombed chef-search, which  
triggered a reconfigure/restart of my ZK ensemble, and either: left me in a  
completely broken state, or potentially a split-brain scenario at 0300. I  
feel more comfortable using chef-search in places where it might be ok I  
missed one single node, it's not going to create a full on outage for me,  
and that node will be picked up on the next chef-client run. We get mixed  
delays after a node has converged of when Solr will have its indexes  
updated, and properly returning me the results of the updated node  
attributes. Solr4 appears to be a great improvement to these delays. +1  
to an upgrade to Chef12/Hosted chef if this is the primary cause of your  
frustrations. I love chef search, but I understand this limitation though,  
and instead architect my solutions to deal with these types of limits.

Alternatively, we've reduced the role ZK plays in our org, by letting ZK  
drive our application configurations, and moved service discovery to  
Consul. This has been a really great win for us in terms of ease of  
discovery, and greatly smoothed out the elastic scaling up/down of our  
applications with no human intervention, and we can still use it in unison  
with Zookeeper. I'm sorry you're feeling frustrated, but if you're  
experiencing frustrations with chef-search just to get Zookeeper ensemble  
setup, you have a long road to travel of debugging Zookeeper in failure  
scenarios, they will be much more frustrating than chef-search. Just my .02

HTH,

-Dennis

On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 7:35 AM, Nathen Harvey [nharvey@chef.io](mailto:nharvey@chef.io) wrote:

> Douglas,
> 
> Your message (  
> [chef - [chef] Re: Re: Chef Search Again](http://lists.opscode.com/sympa/arc/chef/2015-06/msg00189.html)) includes  
> language that is not considerate, respectful, or professional.
> 
> "Did someone intentionally design chef server to induce scraping eyes out  
> with a rusty razor blade?" goes beyond describing your personal  
> frustrations. Clearly, you are frustrated and are having difficulty  
> getting Chef to behave the way you'd like.
> 
> Our Community Guidelines require that you:
> 
> "Be careful in the words that you choose. Be kind to others. Do not insult  
> or put down others."
> 
> and
> 
> - Be considerate.
> - Be respectful.
> - Be professional.
> - Be careful in the words that you choose.
> 
> Eventually, your questions to the list will be ignored unless this  
> behavior improves. Additionally, continuing to post messages that are not  
> in keeping with our community guidelines will lead to corrective action  
> which will likely mean banning you from the community mailing list. I  
> don't really think anyone wants that.
> 
> I would welcome a live discussion via phone or video chat to answer any  
> additional questions you have. Please let me know what time would work  
> best for you.
> 
> Thank you,  
> Nathen Harvey  
> Community Director, Chef  
> 202.368.7264
> 
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 6:41 PM, Douglas Garstang \<[doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)
> 
> > wrote:
> 
> > Charles,
> > 
> > Your response viewed. After viewing the community guidelines, I see  
> > nothing there about using colorful language to explain a personal  
> > frustrating situation being against the rules. I do however see obvious  
> > things like personal threats against others, sexual harassment etc. Having  
> > said this, I realise I risk being removed for speaking my mind. If that's  
> > what eventuates, then let it stand as a matter of public record that I  
> > politefully disagree with your assesment.
> > 
> > Perhaps the community guidelines need to be updated to be more  
> > restrictive in nature?
> > 
> > Douglas.
> > 
> > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 3:34 PM, Charles Johnson [charles@chef.io](mailto:charles@chef.io) wrote:
> > 
> > > Doug,
> > > 
> > > This is another reminder that the Chef community guidelines apply to all  
> > > posts in this list, and that “be respectful” is part of those guidelines.  
> > > Thoughtful, passionate human beings work hard on the Chef server. If you  
> > > need a refresher, the guidelines are available for review here:  
> > > [Chef Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct](https://docs.chef.io/community_guidelines.html) . I strongly suggest you  
> > > familiarize yourself with these guidelines as quickly as possible, and  
> > > adhere to them strictly in the future.
> > > 
> > > While it is clear that you are fed up, and your frustration is  
> > > completely understandable, saying things like “this sorry situation" and  
> > > "scraping eyes out with a rusty razor blade” shuts down conversation  
> > > instead of inviting response. It’s possible to be open and critical when  
> > > sharing your frustrations around the functionality of the Chef server,  
> > > without being dismissive of the work that has gone and continues to go into  
> > > creating it.
> > > 
> > > This is not the first time someone has said something to you about your  
> > > rhetoric on this list. Unless you are able to show that you can understand  
> > > the difference between honesty and candor, it will be the last.  
> > > Thanks,  
> > > --Charles
> > > 
> > > On June 16, 2015 at 12:59:12 PM, Douglas Garstang (  
> > > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)) wrote:
> > > 
> > > So, let me summarise this sorry situation...
> > > 
> > > 1. By default, data about nodes isn't available until after the chef  
> > > client has run at least once.
> > > 2. Node.save at the start of the run list should fix this, but it does  
> > > not.
> > > 3. Putting a 60s/90s sleep before the knife search, which should allow  
> > > solr to complete a re-index has no effect.
> > > 4. Doing a dummy run of the chef-client and pointing it to a no-op  
> > > recipe to get around (1) above requires passing the -r option which has the  
> > > side effect of updating the run list on the chef server so that the next  
> > > call to chef-client uses the dummy cookbook, not the cookbook this node was  
> > > originally provisioned to use.
> > > 5. Even if node.save did work, it won't run on vagrant and throws an  
> > > error.
> > > 
> > > Did someone intentionally design chef server to induce scraping eyes out  
> > > with a rusty razor blade? I'm pretty fed up.
> > > 
> > > Doug.
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:51 PM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> > > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Stephen,
> > > > 
> > > > Well, I just tried using chef-client -r dummy and that worked. However,  
> > > > that permanently replaces the run list on the chef server. If I now run  
> > > > chef-client, hoping to use the zookeeper cookbook formerly associated with  
> > > > the node, it's been replaced by the dummy one. I am so frustrated. ☹
> > > > 
> > > > Doug.
> > > > 
> > > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Stephen Delano [stephen@opscode.com](mailto:stephen@opscode.com)  
> > > > wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > > Sigh. I guess all I need is an empty cookbook that does nothing as  
> > > > > > node.save seems to have no effect anyway. All I need is a dummy chef client  
> > > > > > run.
> > > > > 
> > > > > How are you running this “dummy” chef-client run? If you change the  
> > > > > run-list to remove the role role-zookeeper, your node will be persisted  
> > > > > without this role and without the attributes associated with it. You’ll  
> > > > > have a period of time where the roles attribute of the node does NOT  
> > > > > contain what you’re looking for and searches will fail.
> > > > > 
> > > > > —  
> > > > > Stephen Delano - Engineering Lead, Chef
> > > > > 
> > > > > On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Douglas Garstang \<  
> > > > > [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)\> wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > > The battle continues with chef search. I'm trying to use chef  
> > > > > > search to discover zookeeper nodes. The very first thing in my run list is  
> > > > > > node.save, which seems to cause the Chef server to immediately have access  
> > > > > > to the data I need, the role and the environment.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I just did a test, where one window had the result of "knife search  
> > > > > > node "chef\_environment:dev AND roles:role-zookeeper". I could see that the  
> > > > > > data was populated immediately after the call to node.save. A few minutes  
> > > > > > later, when the recipe did it's search, no nodes were found, as evidenced  
> > > > > > from an empty log() statement in the recipe.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I've run the test a few times, and basically, the result are  
> > > > > > unreliable. On my latest test, two of the nodes discovered all three nodes,  
> > > > > > and one of the nodes discovered only one node (not itself btw).
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > How can I make this reliable?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Doug
> > > > 
> > > > --  
> > > > Regards,
> > > > 
> > > > Douglas Garstang  
> > > > [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> > > > Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> > > > Cell: +1-805-340-5627
> > > 
> > > --  
> > > Regards,
> > > 
> > > Douglas Garstang  
> > > [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> > > Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> > > Cell: +1-805-340-5627
> > 
> > --  
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Douglas Garstang  
> > [http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang](http://www.linkedin.com/in/garstang)  
> > Email: [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)  
> > Cell: +1-805-340-5627