# Disable chef-client?
**URL:** https://discourse.chef.io/t/disable-chef-client/5836
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)
**Created:** [October 22, 2014, 3:49pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/disable-chef-client/5836 "2014-10-22T15:49:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Douglas\_Garstang](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Douglas_Garstang)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2014, 3:49pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/disable-chef-client/5836/1 "2014-10-22T15:49:14Z")
All,
When the chef-client is running as a daemon, is there a way to keep the
client running as a daemon, but temporarily put it into NOOP mode?
Doug
---
### Author:  [@Peter\_Burkholder1](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Peter_Burkholder1)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/disable-chef-client/5836/2 "2014-10-22T19:18:11Z")
Lockfile? See
> **[Chef 11 In-Depth: Client Improvements - Chef Blog | Chef](https://www.chef.io/blog/chef-11-in-depth-client-improvements)**
>
> Chef 11: New features like chef-apply, formatted output, template partials, and run locking enhance client-side efficiency and usability.
and
# In client.rb or solo.rb
lockfile "/not-nfs/chef-lockfile.pid"
On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 11:49 AM, Douglas Garstang [doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com)
wrote:
> All,
>
> When the chef-client is running as a daemon, is there a way to keep the
> client running as a daemon, but temporarily put it into NOOP mode?
>
> Doug
---
### Author:  [@kallistec](https://discourse.chef.io/u/kallistec)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/disable-chef-client/5836/3 "2014-10-22T22:13:33Z")
On Wednesday, October 22, 2014 at 12:18 PM, Peter Burkholder wrote:
> Lockfile? See [Chef 11 In-Depth: Client Improvements - Chef Blog | Chef](https://www.getchef.com/blog/2013/02/06/chef-11-in-depth-client-improvements/) and
>
> # In client.rb or solo.rb
>
> lockfile "/not-nfs/chef-lockfile.pid"
Chef uses flocks to ensure that there is a live “owner” of this lockfile, and depending on configuration, the default behavior if the lock isn’t available is for chef to wait, so this isn’t really a good option.
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 11:49 AM, Douglas Garstang \<[doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com) ([mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com](mailto:doug.garstang@gmail.com))\> wrote:
>
> > All,
> >
> > When the chef-client is running as a daemon, is there a way to keep the client running as a daemon, but temporarily put it into NOOP mode?
> >
> > Doug
> > Doug,
There’s nothing built-in to do this. You could maybe experiment with using a data bag item to drive recipe code that would set `Chef::Config[:why_run]` to true, but I’m not sure it will work. Though we do something similar with a “suicide” cookbook that makes chef-client abort early if a certain data bag item contains a specific value (and we added some scripts to change the data bag item easily from the command line.
HTH,
--
Daniel DeLeo
---
### Author:  [@Tensibai](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Tensibai)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2014, 10:22pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/disable-chef-client/5836/4 "2014-10-22T22:22:34Z")
My point of view: I would use a tag or an attribute and a top level (in run list) recipe aborting (gracefully if possible, can't remember this) the chef run if the tag is present.
---- Douglas Garstang a écrit ----
> All,
>
> When the chef-client is running as a daemon, is there a way to keep the client running as a daemon, but temporarily put it into NOOP mode?
>
> Doug
---
### Author:  [@Tensibai](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Tensibai)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2014, 8:28am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/disable-chef-client/5836/5 "2014-10-23T08:28:22Z")
you may even use the resource "omnibus chef killer" from
>
as a starting point for yours.
Le 2014-10-23 00:22, Tensibai Zhaoying a écrit :
> My point of view: I would use a tag or an attribute and a top level (in run list) recipe aborting (gracefully if possible, can't remember this) the chef run if the tag is present.
>
> ---- Douglas Garstang a écrit ----
>
> All,
>
> When the chef-client is running as a daemon, is there a way to keep the client running as a daemon, but temporarily put it into NOOP mode?
>
> Doug