# Debugging dependencies

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/debugging-dependencies/5382>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [May 8, 2014, 8:40am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/debugging-dependencies/5382 "2014-05-08T08:40:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Arnold\_Krille](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/arnold_krille/32/285_2.png) [@Arnold\_Krille](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Arnold_Krille)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2014, 8:40am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/debugging-dependencies/5382/1 "2014-05-08T08:40:28Z")

</div>

Hi all,

since some days my opensource-chef-server is acting up. Most hosts work  
just fine, for some hosts erchef takes ~1000(!) seconds to process the  
dependencies. And eats all the cpu. Thankfully this doesn’t block other  
clients from getting their data. But some hosts haven’t been able to get  
the data for a successfull chef run for some days now. It seems to be  
some of my cookbooks, alone or in combination. But I am currently  
lacking data to debug this.

Is there a way to make erchef output the dep-cycles its calculating per  
request? Or is there a way to query dependencies on chef-server by hand?  
I tried setting “erchef[‘log\_level’] = :debug” in  
/etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb followed by “chef-server-ctl  
reconfigure” but that resulted only in one info-level logline per  
request.

Thanks in advance,

Arnold

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kallistec](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/kallistec/32/23_2.png) [@kallistec](https://discourse.chef.io/u/kallistec)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2014, 9:19pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/debugging-dependencies/5382/2 "2014-05-08T21:19:44Z")

</div>

This is a known issue in the Open Source Server’s dependency resolver. This will be fixed in 11.1, which will be released soon. We’re expecting an RC to go out in a day or so and full release next week.

--  
Daniel DeLeo

On Thursday, May 8, 2014 at 1:40 AM, Arnold Krille wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> since some days my opensource-chef-server is acting up. Most hosts work  
> just fine, for some hosts erchef takes ~1000(!) seconds to process the  
> dependencies. And eats all the cpu. Thankfully this doesn't block other  
> clients from getting their data. But some hosts haven't been able to get  
> the data for a successfull chef run for some days now. It seems to be  
> some of my cookbooks, alone or in combination. But I am currently  
> lacking data to debug this.
> 
> Is there a way to make erchef output the dep-cycles its calculating per  
> request? Or is there a way to query dependencies on chef-server by hand?  
> I tried setting "erchef['log\_level'] = :debug" in  
> /etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb followed by "chef-server-ctl  
> reconfigure" but that resulted only in one info-level logline per  
> request.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Arnold

---

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**Author:** ![coderanger](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/coderanger/32/5_2.png) [@coderanger](https://discourse.chef.io/u/coderanger)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/debugging-dependencies/5382/3 "2014-05-08T21:22:09Z")

</div>

You can use [GitHub - coderanger/knife-solve: A knife plugin to see the Chef Server version solver solution for a given set of cookbooks.](https://github.com/coderanger/knife-solve) to debug these kinds of issues. Just recursively narrow the set of cookbooks you pass it until you find the minimal set that fails to solve (in a reasonable amount of time anyway). Often by then the error in the constraints is pretty clear.

--Noah

On May 8, 2014, at 1:40 AM, Arnold Krille [arnold@arnoldarts.de](mailto:arnold@arnoldarts.de) wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> since some days my opensource-chef-server is acting up. Most hosts work just fine, for some hosts erchef takes ~1000(!) seconds to process the dependencies. And eats all the cpu. Thankfully this doesn't block other clients from getting their data. But some hosts haven't been able to get the data for a successfull chef run for some days now. It seems to be some of my cookbooks, alone or in combination. But I am currently lacking data to debug this.
> 
> Is there a way to make erchef output the dep-cycles its calculating per request? Or is there a way to query dependencies on chef-server by hand?  
> I tried setting "erchef['log\_level'] = :debug" in /etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb followed by "chef-server-ctl reconfigure" but that resulted only in one info-level logline per request.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Arnold

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arnold\_Krille](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/arnold_krille/32/285_2.png) [@Arnold\_Krille](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Arnold_Krille)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2014, 8:36am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/debugging-dependencies/5382/4 "2014-05-09T08:36:23Z")

</div>

Hi,

thanks for that tip. Will look at it and hopefully remember this the  
next time this issue arises.

For now I 'fixed'/circumvented the problem by updating the requirements  
of our own cookbooks and uploading them, then deleting lots of older  
version from the server. That made chef-server not hang on certain  
nodes/recipes. Then I only had to adopt the version-constraints of the  
environments to the latest versions...

Have fun,

- Arnold

Am Thu, 8 May 2014 14:22:09 -0700 schrieb Noah Kantrowitz  
[noah@coderanger.net](mailto:noah@coderanger.net):

> You can use [GitHub - coderanger/knife-solve: A knife plugin to see the Chef Server version solver solution for a given set of cookbooks.](https://github.com/coderanger/knife-solve) to debug these  
> kinds of issues. Just recursively narrow the set of cookbooks you  
> pass it until you find the minimal set that fails to solve (in a  
> reasonable amount of time anyway). Often by then the error in the  
> constraints is pretty clear.
> 
> --Noah
> 
> On May 8, 2014, at 1:40 AM, Arnold Krille [arnold@arnoldarts.de](mailto:arnold@arnoldarts.de)  
> wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > since some days my opensource-chef-server is acting up. Most hosts  
> > work just fine, for some hosts erchef takes ~1000(!) seconds to  
> > process the dependencies. And eats all the cpu. Thankfully this  
> > doesn't block other clients from getting their data. But some hosts  
> > haven't been able to get the data for a successfull chef run for  
> > some days now. It seems to be some of my cookbooks, alone or in  
> > combination. But I am currently lacking data to debug this.
> > 
> > Is there a way to make erchef output the dep-cycles its calculating  
> > per request? Or is there a way to query dependencies on chef-server  
> > by hand? I tried setting "erchef['log\_level'] = :debug"  
> > in /etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb followed by "chef-server-ctl  
> > reconfigure" but that resulted only in one info-level logline per  
> > request.
> > 
> > Thanks in advance,
> > 
> > Arnold

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arnold\_Krille](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/arnold_krille/32/285_2.png) [@Arnold\_Krille](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Arnold_Krille)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2014, 8:38am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/debugging-dependencies/5382/5 "2014-05-09T08:38:01Z")

</div>

Hi,

yeah, I have seen the ticket. Add me to the list of users waiting for  
the release;-)

See my other answer to Noah how I solved my problem.

Have fun,

- Arnold

Am Thu, 8 May 2014 14:19:44 -0700  
schrieb Daniel DeLeo [dan@kallistec.com](mailto:dan@kallistec.com):

> This is a known issue in the Open Source Server’s dependency  
> resolver. This will be fixed in 11.1, which will be released soon.  
> We’re expecting an RC to go out in a day or so and full release next  
> week.
> 
> --  
> Daniel DeLeo
> 
> On Thursday, May 8, 2014 at 1:40 AM, Arnold Krille wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > since some days my opensource-chef-server is acting up. Most hosts  
> > work just fine, for some hosts erchef takes ~1000(!) seconds to  
> > process the dependencies. And eats all the cpu. Thankfully this  
> > doesn't block other clients from getting their data. But some hosts  
> > haven't been able to get the data for a successfull chef run for  
> > some days now. It seems to be some of my cookbooks, alone or in  
> > combination. But I am currently lacking data to debug this.
> > 
> > Is there a way to make erchef output the dep-cycles its calculating  
> > per request? Or is there a way to query dependencies on chef-server  
> > by hand? I tried setting "erchef['log\_level'] = :debug" in  
> > /etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb followed by "chef-server-ctl  
> > reconfigure" but that resulted only in one info-level logline per  
> > request.
> > 
> > Thanks in advance,
> > 
> > Arnold

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lamont\_Granquist\_OLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7feea3/32.png) [@Lamont\_Granquist\_OLD](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Lamont_Granquist_OLD)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2014, 6:53pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/debugging-dependencies/5382/6 "2014-05-16T18:53:45Z")

</div>

Catching up on mailing list content, just wanted to comment that you can  
assist the depsolver by making sure that  
none of your cookbooks 'depend' on themselves (and you don't want to  
have larger loops setup anywhere either, but  
those might be harder to track down if you've got a big mess of cookbooks).

Either knife upload and/or the chef server should arguably error or  
automatically trim such self-dependencies out of  
the cookbook metadata before trying to feed it to the resolver, but  
AFAIK it still does not. There should probably be  
a foodcritic rule added to check the name of the cookbook against any of  
the depends lines and complain if there's  
a match.

On 5/9/14, 1:36 AM, Arnold Krille wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> thanks for that tip. Will look at it and hopefully remember this the  
> next time this issue arises.
> 
> For now I 'fixed'/circumvented the problem by updating the requirements  
> of our own cookbooks and uploading them, then deleting lots of older  
> version from the server. That made chef-server not hang on certain  
> nodes/recipes. Then I only had to adopt the version-constraints of the  
> environments to the latest versions...
> 
> Have fun,
> 
> - Arnold
> 
> Am Thu, 8 May 2014 14:22:09 -0700 schrieb Noah Kantrowitz  
> [noah@coderanger.net](mailto:noah@coderanger.net):
> 
> > You can use [GitHub - coderanger/knife-solve: A knife plugin to see the Chef Server version solver solution for a given set of cookbooks.](https://github.com/coderanger/knife-solve) to debug these  
> > kinds of issues. Just recursively narrow the set of cookbooks you  
> > pass it until you find the minimal set that fails to solve (in a  
> > reasonable amount of time anyway). Often by then the error in the  
> > constraints is pretty clear.
> > 
> > --Noah
> > 
> > On May 8, 2014, at 1:40 AM, Arnold Krille [arnold@arnoldarts.de](mailto:arnold@arnoldarts.de)  
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > Hi all,
> > > 
> > > since some days my opensource-chef-server is acting up. Most hosts  
> > > work just fine, for some hosts erchef takes ~1000(!) seconds to  
> > > process the dependencies. And eats all the cpu. Thankfully this  
> > > doesn't block other clients from getting their data. But some hosts  
> > > haven't been able to get the data for a successfull chef run for  
> > > some days now. It seems to be some of my cookbooks, alone or in  
> > > combination. But I am currently lacking data to debug this.
> > > 
> > > Is there a way to make erchef output the dep-cycles its calculating  
> > > per request? Or is there a way to query dependencies on chef-server  
> > > by hand? I tried setting "erchef['log\_level'] = :debug"  
> > > in /etc/chef-server/chef-server.rb followed by "chef-server-ctl  
> > > reconfigure" but that resulted only in one info-level logline per  
> > > request.
> > > 
> > > Thanks in advance,
> > > 
> > > Arnold