Chef Workstation 21.7.524 Released!

Chef Release Announcements
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We are delighted to announce the availability of version 21.7.524 of Chef Workstation.

Bug Fixes

  • Resolved Ruby crashes that occurred intermittently when running knife ssh or knife bootstrap.

New Features

Policyfile Improvements

Policyfile.rb metadata Helper

Policyfiles has a new metadata helper. This helper gets a local cookbook's name and path from the metadata.rb file instead of requiring them in the Policyfile.

Existing Policyfile:

name "base" # cookbook name
run_list "base::default"
default_source :supermarket
cookbook "base", path: "." # cookbook path

Policyfile using the metadata helper:

metadata # invokes the metadata helper
run_list "base::default"
default_source :supermarket

Defined Policy Groups in Exports

The chef export command now includes a new --policy_group flag that allows you to define a policy group (a set of hosts in a deployed unit) in the exported tarball.

Cookstyle 7.15.1

Cookstyle has been updated from 7.13 to 7.15.1 with additional cops and an updated RuboCop engine.

RuboCop 1.18.3

The RuboCop engine that powers Cookstyle has been updated to 1.18.3. This new release improves autocorrection and resolves a large number of detection errors.

New Cops

We added Chef InSpec-specific Cookstyle Cops to the InSpec/Deprecations department. These cops help with the migration from InSpec attributes to inputs. Watch for additional deprecation and correctness cops for InSpec in the future. You can also request a new cop for Chef InSpec!

InSpec/Deprecations/AttributeDefault

The Chef/Deprecations/AttributeDefault cop detects Chef InSpec profiles that use the deprecated pattern of passing the default option to attribute or input helpers instead of passing it to the newer value option.

Enabled by default: True

Autocorrects: True

InSpec/Deprecations/AttributeHelper

The Chef/Deprecations/AttributeHelper cop detects Chef InSpec profiles that use the deprecated attribute helper instead of the input helper.

Enabled by default: True

Autocorrects: True

Chef/Deprecations/PolicyfileCommunitySource

The Chef/Deprecations/PolicyfileCommunitySource cop detects Policyfile.rb files that set a default_source of :community. This source is deprecated and is an alias to the :supermarket source, which should be used instead.

Enabled by default: True

Autocorrects: True

Test Kitchen Improvements

New default chef_infra Provisioner

We renamed the chef_zero Test Kitchen provisioner to chef_infra, making it clear that it is the preferred provisioner for testing Chef Infra cookbooks. This change is backward-compatible, so your existing kitchen.yml configurations will still work. We also changed Test Kitchen's default provisioned from chef_solo to chef_infra. Even if you leave the provisioner configuration unassigned, you will still get Chef Infra cookbook testing. To test with Chef Solo, you need to set the provisioner to chef_solo explicitly.

Berkshelf / Policyfiles Update Automatically

We changed Test Kitchen to automatically run berks update or chef update before testing, so you're always testing the latest cookbook code on your workstation. If you prefer to test an existing Policyfile.lock without updating it, add always_update_cookbooks false to the provisioner section of your kitchen.yml file.

Specifying Policy Groups

We added a new policy_group configuration that allows setting the policy group for testing a cookbook. Set this in the provisioner block or individual suites.

suites:
  - name: default
    policy_group: production
    run_list:
      - recipe[base]

Attaching Elastic Network Interfaces in AWS

We added a new elastic_network_interface_id configuration option that allows you to specify the Elastic Network Interface ID attached to new AWS test instances.

driver:
  name: ec2
  elastic_network_interface_id: eni-0545666738adeed14

Ubuntu FIPS Support

Chef Workstation Ubuntu packages are now FIPS enabled for all your FedRAMP needs.

Get the Build

If you are running the Chef Workstation toolbar application you can download this version from the menu after the app next update check. You can also download binaries directly from downloads.chef.io.

As always, we welcome your feedback and invite you to contact us directly or share your email. Thanks for using Chef Workstation!