Chef-Solo: set the node attribute to an arbitrary value

Hello folks,
I’m trying to make my Vagrant VM assume that node.chef_environment =
something, even though that “something” is not an environment that actually
exists (i.e. I don’t have an environments/something.rb).

So in my Vagrantfile, I have the following:
config.vm.provision :chef_solo do |chef|
chef.json = {
chef_environment: ‘foo_vagrant’
}
chef.run_list = [
‘recipe[foo::default]’
]
end

I did it that way because I don’t know any better, and in the past I’ve
written cookbooks with case statements reading the node.chef_environment
attribute and setting other attributes one way or another depending on what
the environment is. However, I did have actual environment files then. So
perhaps my attempt at cleverness failed.

Anyway, I also have the following bit of recipe code:
cookbook_file ‘/etc/init.d/celery_worker’ do
source "#{node.chef_environment}_celery_worker"
mode '0755’
action :nothing
end.run_action(:create)

Sadly, when my recipe runs, I get the following:
==> default: Error executing action create on resource
’cookbook_file[/etc/init.d/celery_worker]’
==> default:

==> default:
==> default: Chef::Exceptions::FileNotFound
==> default: ------------------------------
==> default: Cookbook ‘foo’ (0.9.2) does not contain a file at any of these
locations:
==> default: files/centos-6.6/_default_celery_worker
==> default: files/centos/_default_celery_worker
==> default: files/default/_default_celery_worker
==> default: files/_default_celery_worker

So I totally get that the _default environment was applied to my node
instead of what I had hoped to force through the Vagrantfile. And so my
question is… what, if anything, can I do about this, short of actually
having an environment file? If it makes a difference, I don’t have a
requirement to use Chef-Solo, I could switch to Chef-Zero, I just chose
Chef-Solo for this project because I’ve never looked at Chef-Zero yet.

Thanks!

I think per the Vagrant documentation you are going to want

chef.environment = 'whatever'

You'll also need to provide an environment path that contains a JSON
file representing the environment.

  • Julian

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 2:52 PM, Fabien Delpierre
fabien.delpierre@gmail.com wrote:

Hello folks,
I'm trying to make my Vagrant VM assume that node.chef_environment =
something, even though that "something" is not an environment that actually
exists (i.e. I don't have an environments/something.rb).

So in my Vagrantfile, I have the following:
config.vm.provision :chef_solo do |chef|
chef.json = {
chef_environment: 'foo_vagrant'
}
chef.run_list = [
'recipe[foo::default]'
]
end

I did it that way because I don't know any better, and in the past I've
written cookbooks with case statements reading the node.chef_environment
attribute and setting other attributes one way or another depending on what
the environment is. However, I did have actual environment files then. So
perhaps my attempt at cleverness failed.

Anyway, I also have the following bit of recipe code:
cookbook_file '/etc/init.d/celery_worker' do
source "#{node.chef_environment}_celery_worker"
mode '0755'
action :nothing
end.run_action(:create)

Sadly, when my recipe runs, I get the following:
==> default: Error executing action create on resource
'cookbook_file[/etc/init.d/celery_worker]'
==> default:

==> default:
==> default: Chef::Exceptions::FileNotFound
==> default: ------------------------------
==> default: Cookbook 'foo' (0.9.2) does not contain a file at any of these
locations:
==> default: files/centos-6.6/_default_celery_worker
==> default: files/centos/_default_celery_worker
==> default: files/default/_default_celery_worker
==> default: files/_default_celery_worker

So I totally get that the _default environment was applied to my node
instead of what I had hoped to force through the Vagrantfile. And so my
question is... what, if anything, can I do about this, short of actually
having an environment file? If it makes a difference, I don't have a
requirement to use Chef-Solo, I could switch to Chef-Zero, I just chose
Chef-Solo for this project because I've never looked at Chef-Zero yet.

Thanks!

--
[ Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com * Sorry, I'm ]
[ WWW: Julian Dunn's Blog - Commentary on media, technology, and everything in between. * only Web 1.0 ]
[ gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ * compliant! ]
[ PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9 ]

Alright, guess I'm stuck having to have real environments. That's alright
as I will have them in prod, it was just easier for dev to try and tell
Chef that the environment is 'x' even when 'x' isn't a real environment.
Thanks!

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 5:28 PM, Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com wrote:

I think per the Vagrant documentation you are going to want

chef.environment = 'whatever'

Chef Solo - Provisioning | Vagrant | HashiCorp Developer

You'll also need to provide an environment path that contains a JSON
file representing the environment.

  • Julian

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 2:52 PM, Fabien Delpierre
fabien.delpierre@gmail.com wrote:

Hello folks,
I'm trying to make my Vagrant VM assume that node.chef_environment =
something, even though that "something" is not an environment that
actually
exists (i.e. I don't have an environments/something.rb).

So in my Vagrantfile, I have the following:
config.vm.provision :chef_solo do |chef|
chef.json = {
chef_environment: 'foo_vagrant'
}
chef.run_list = [
'recipe[foo::default]'
]
end

I did it that way because I don't know any better, and in the past I've
written cookbooks with case statements reading the node.chef_environment
attribute and setting other attributes one way or another depending on
what
the environment is. However, I did have actual environment files then. So
perhaps my attempt at cleverness failed.

Anyway, I also have the following bit of recipe code:
cookbook_file '/etc/init.d/celery_worker' do
source "#{node.chef_environment}_celery_worker"
mode '0755'
action :nothing
end.run_action(:create)

Sadly, when my recipe runs, I get the following:
==> default: Error executing action create on resource
'cookbook_file[/etc/init.d/celery_worker]'
==> default:

================================================================================

==> default:
==> default: Chef::Exceptions::FileNotFound
==> default: ------------------------------
==> default: Cookbook 'foo' (0.9.2) does not contain a file at any of
these
locations:
==> default: files/centos-6.6/_default_celery_worker
==> default: files/centos/_default_celery_worker
==> default: files/default/_default_celery_worker
==> default: files/_default_celery_worker

So I totally get that the _default environment was applied to my node
instead of what I had hoped to force through the Vagrantfile. And so my
question is... what, if anything, can I do about this, short of actually
having an environment file? If it makes a difference, I don't have a
requirement to use Chef-Solo, I could switch to Chef-Zero, I just chose
Chef-Solo for this project because I've never looked at Chef-Zero yet.

Thanks!

--
[ Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com * Sorry, I'm ]
[ WWW: Julian Dunn's Blog - Commentary on media, technology, and everything in between. * only Web 1.0 ]
[ gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ * compliant! ]
[ PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9 ]